One of the best ways to honor Black History Month is to learn about it! For an alternative education source to your typical textbook, check out these three recommendations for captivating reads that will also help you learn something new.
1. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
If you are the romantic type, this is the book for you. Beginning in Nigeria and taking place over several years and continents, high school sweethearts, Ifemelu and Obinze prove that good things take time. To pursue an American education for her college years, Ifemelu travels across the ocean. However, fitting in isn’t as easy as she believed, and her relationship with Obinze struggles. Many years later, she decides it is time to move back home, and faces adjustment challenges going back as well. However, now she and Obinze are back in the same town. Will they reconnect? Has he moved on? Throughout this read, I came to more fully understand the life of an immigrant and the sacrifices people make to follow their dreams.
2. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
This might be the most eye-opening book I have ever read. In a unique format, each chapter has a different narrator, but each narrator is also generationally related to the other. The book is basically one huge family tree, showing the completely different life paths that result from one half-sister staying in Africa married to nobility, and the other being forced to go to America on a slave ship. Across generations, the reader experiences first-hand accounts of life on a plantation, centuries of warfare in Ghana, British colonization, jazz clubs in Harlem, love, loss, and everything in between. If you are looking for a book that will time-travel you across an unforgettable experience, this will certainly deliver that in an emotionally powerful way.
3. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The only non-fiction book on the list, this memoir shares the life of hilarious former The Daily Show host Trevor Noah, and his childhood during the South African Apartheid. During Apartheid, interracial relationships were illegal, thus making his existence a crime. As his story unfolds, the reader learns how this remarkable comedian went from spending most of his childhood hiding behind closed doors, to sitting at one of the most televised talk show desks in the United States. Personally, I didn’t realize how current apartheid was until I read this autobiography, and after this enlightening read, I found myself feeling more knowledgeable about the world — and even took a class on South African Apartheid last spring!
I hope you find these reads as engaging as I did. In addition to being addictive reads, these books will leave you more knowledgeable about Black history than they found you. Wishing you a meaningful and impactful Black History Month!