Black Voices that Pay Tribute to Past and Present: Audiobooks for Black History Month 

I’ve been a student of American history since my first visit to an historic house museum in third grade. I could almost hear the chatter of the generations who once lived there, and I’ve been hooked on history ever since. It’s both an overused cliché and an underappreciated gift that there is never an end to what we can learn about the past — just when you think there’s nothing new to uncover about a well-documented era, person, or social movement, another round of research and interpretation emerges to shed new light. Currently, we are benefitting from a wealth of new information and perspectives about American Black history as well-established narratives are being re-examined and new narratives are being revealed. The only downside to this is that there is a daunting amount of material to get immersed in.  

This list of audiobooks showcases a small portion of what I’d like to encourage you to explore during Black History Month and far beyond. My focus is on new scholarship and new voices. Pick any one of these, and you’ll discover something new. Select a few, and you’ll have a wider scope of knowledge and point of view. Find time for all, and you’ll likely share my own realization that these stories represent just the tip of the iceberg in a quest to better know and better understand the history of being Black in America. 

History and Social Commentary

Overground Railroad and Driving the Green Book both dig beneath the faceless surface to research the Green Book, the travel guide Black motorists used to literally navigate segregation from the 1930s through the 1960s. The first focuses on a chronological summary of the business establishments that served as safe havens, while also recounting family memories and others’ road trips traveling with the Book. Her poignant conclusions about the effect integration had on Black travelers, making the Green Book outdated, shocked me. The second chronicles the author’s recent travels to some of the Book’s featured cities and locales, where his in-the-moment ponderings, reminiscences, and discoveries merge past and present in a series of chapters and interviews that provide a very broad look and feel of the Green Book’s role and legacy. An accompanying PDF contains archival photos and ephemera. 

Caste, How the Word is Passed, and South to America are three incisive, instructive, and introspective nonfiction award winners that address issues of race and persistent prejudice head-on but also posit ways to alter the trajectory of this painful national story in the future. Don’t be dissuaded by the seriousness of these subjects because the very talented narrators make complex issues accessible. Each of these audiobooks includes ideas and sentences that are at turns startling, philosophical, hopeful, and poetic, and they are made even more impactful and memorable when heard aloud. All three of these books are being touted as new American classic texts. I recommend listening to all of them as a triptych — they both intersect with and diverge from one another but land in the same place, which is that they will make you think really, really hard about your role in this country’s future. 

Books for Young Readers

When I was a social studies teacher, my students responded to history best when they could get to know actual people from the past though photographs, letters, and physical objects left behind. I wish I’d had these audiobooks to supplement my lesson plans because they make events and people from the past relatable to young readers today. And each helps kids confront the wide range of emotions that comes with an understanding of America’s complicated past.

The tales of Civil Rights icons Ruby Bridges and John Lewis are sensitive, kid-friendly introductions to these true heroes. Each narrative is short but expressively told, focusing on universal pieces of the human experience children recognize: fear, courage, doubt, self-confidence, unfairness, friendship.

For older readers, Unspeakable uses music and sound effects to great effect to capture the feel of Tulsa’s Black community before (bustling), during (chaotic), and after (devastated) the city’s racially motivated massacre in 1921. The award-winning picture book version is a beautiful companion, and I recommend reading them together. For Lamb, one of our ten best audiobooks of 2023, provides a glimpse into the Jim Crow realities of life for a young Black girl and her family in 1940s Mississippi. This is YA fiction, but the family you meet leaps off the page as very real, thanks to the gifted audio performers, who make a heartbreaking story instantly memorable. Jumping forward a generation to the 1960s, My Selma is a gorgeously spun and moving coming of age memoir narrated in warm and nostalgic tones by the author. By sharing memories and anecdotes of everyday life, she makes it clear that amidst the great social upheaval right outside her front door, her childhood included layers of both dark and light in the hometown she loves. We Are Here is a joyful listen for kids and families to enjoy together. It celebrates the positive contributions of known and unknown Black people throughout history in the areas of music, food, activism, and more. Its melodic free verse narration centered around the power of “we” and the power of “you” is uplifting, hopeful, and truly life-affirming, no matter how young or old you are. 

Memoirs

We learn not just from the past, of course, but from listening to each other’s hopes, regrets, plans, and advice in the here and now as well. Any one of these self-narrated memoirs by inspirational Black Americans will enthrall you.

Viola Davis’s “love letter” to herself was a 2022 B&N Book of the Year and a 2023 Audie Award Winner for Best Audiobook of the Year and Best Narration by Author. Her gritty and raw performance relating her surprising path from traumatic childhood to lauded career captured my full attention from the first line to the last. Equally unflinching is Stephen A. Smith’s account of going from a child of immigrants in Queens, New York, who was held back in school twice to a hugely popular television sports commentator. His narration is a slam dunk for sports fans and anyone else interested in self-made success stories — I could viscerally feel every emotion in his voice and sometimes thought the ground was shaking! Also definitely not just a sports story is former basketball star Maya Moore’s memoir with her husband, Jonathan Irons. Artfully structured narration that showcases each of their parallel stories, they relate how two very different life paths crossed and became a singular force for social justice.

Gospel singer CeCe Winans speaks from the heart about pivotal experiences that have shaped her unwavering faith, and ballerina Misty Copeland thanks her mentor for being a steadfast trailblazer, an empathizing confidante, and a lifelong friend. And Then We Rise is rapper and actor Common’s advice for how to achieve a healthy and fulfilling life beyond commercial success. His mix of personal stories and suggestions for diet, exercise, and spirituality plus original music makes this an easy-to-read guide to self-care. The goal for all these persuasive performers in writing was to pass on wisdom they feel they’ve gained along the way, and I took away life notes from all of them. 

Arts and Culture

For just a few minutes, an hour or two, or even several days, indulge in any of these entertaining audiobooks, which showcase the varied and significant contributions Black Americans have always made to the American cultural landscape.

Step back in time to 1920s New York City with When Broadway Was Black, or to the 1970s with Questlove’s penetrating tribute to pop music, Music Is History (a 2022 Audies Finalist). Hollywood Black is a thorough and thought-provoking look at the history of Black Americans in film from the silent era through today. The audiobook includes a PDF treasure trove of images, or consider purchasing the gorgeous hardcover edition. Questlove smoothly narrates his audiobook, which also includes bonus material in the way of sound effects and playlists. The phenomenal impact of the Black Panther film franchise is explored in Dreams of Wakanda. The essay topics in this collection are as diverse (fashion, music, comics, the African diaspora, etc.) as the dozens of experts who penned and narrate them.

And finally . . . we’ll end our new discoveries with fiction and poetry. Written in 1966 by 22-year-old Black writer Diane Oliver and based on her growing up in North Carolina, this recommended short story collection is only being fully discovered and published now. The tight and tense tales fictionalize real-life racism that Black families endured in the segregated south, and they are particularly compelling in the audio format. Black Roses is poet Harold Green III’s tribute to 40 Black women, their accomplishments, and their impact on him and the wider world. Some of his roses are well-known to me (Kamala Harris, Simone Biles, Stacey Abrams), others less so, but Green’s beautifully written and sincerely delivered odes gave me reasons to celebrate them all. In planting and watering the seeds of this lovingly cultivated garden, Green also plants the idea in all of us to honor in our own purposeful ways the people who inspire, care for, and love us.