Select language, opens an overlay
  • General Recommendations
  • Staff-Created List

Honoring Black Labor for adults

The 2025 theme for Black History Month focuses on uplifting the Black community's various and profound contributions that have shaped American society. This list is highlighting the different types of labor, both paid and unpaid, that deserve recognition. The books featured here represent different forms of labor, such as providing education, organized efforts for community and activism, providing service, demonstrating innovation and excellence in their respected career paths, and many more. Created by the Black Cultural Library Advocates Team, we aim to celebrate the accomplishments made by those who came before us, as well as give flowers to those currently making positive impacts!

Multnomah County Library

24 items

  • Black Panther Woman

    the Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins

    Phillips, Mary Frances,
    BookNew York : New York University Press, [2025] — 323.1196 P5622b 2024
  • New Prize for These Eyes

    the Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement

    Williams, Juan,
    BookNew York : Simon & Schuster, 2025. — 323.0973 W7246n 2025
  • Here

    Where the Black Designers Are : a Life in Advocacy

    Holmes-Miller, Cheryl D., 1952-
    BookNew York : Princeton Architectural Press, [2024] — 740.92 H7524h 2024
  • Resist

    How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America

    Omokha, Rita,
    BookNew York, NY : St. Martin's Press, an imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2024. — 323.0922 O56r 2024
  • Building the Black City

    the Transformation of American Life

    Trotter, Joe William, 1945-
    BookOakland, California : University of California Press, [2024] — 305.89607 T8586b 2024
  • Medgar & Myrlie

    Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America

    Reid, Joy-Ann, 1968-
    BookNew York : Mariner Books, [2024] — 323.092 R356m 2024
  • A Seat at the Table

    the Life and Times of Shirley Chisholm

    Starks, Glenn L., 1966-
    BookChicago : Lawrence Hill Books, [2024] — BIO 328.73 CHISHOLM 2024
  • Legacy

    a Black Physician Reckons With Racism in Medicine

    Blackstock, Uché,
    Book[New York, New York] : Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, [2024] — 610.92 B631L 2024
  • Combee

    Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War

    Fields-Black, Edda L.,
    BookNew York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2024] — 973.734 F461c 2023
  • Black, Queer & Untold

    a New Archive of Designers, Artists, & Trailblazers

    Key, Jon,
    BookMontclair : Levine Querido, 2024. — 741.6 K442b 2024
  • Rooted

    the American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership

    Baker, Brea,
    BookNew York : One World, [2024] — 333.33508 B1672r 2024
  • BookNew York [New York] : AUWA Books, MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024. — 782.42164 Q58h 2024
  • The Black Angels

    the Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis.

    Smilios, Maria,
    BookNew York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, [2023] — 610.73092 S6415b 2023
  • Black Folk

    the Roots of the Black Working Class

    Kelley, Blair Murphy, 1973-
    BookNew York, N.Y. : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, [2023] — 331.6396 K2939b 2023
  • No Right to An Honest Living

    the Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era

    Jones, Jacqueline, 1948-
    BookNew York, NY : Basic Books, Hachette Book Group, 2023. — 974.461 J775n 2023
  • The Sisterhood

    How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture

    Thorsson, Courtney, 1978-
    BookNew York : Columbia University Press, [2023] — 810.99287 T522s 2023
  • Black, Brilliant and Dyslexic

    Neurodivergent Heroes Tell Their Stories

    BookLondon : Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2023. — 362.19685 B6272
  • When Broadway Was Black

    the Triumphant Story of the all-Black Musical That Changed the World

    Gaines, Caseen, 1986-
    BookNaperville : Sourcebooks, 2023. — 792.08996 G142w 2023
  • Let This Radicalize You

    Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

    Hayes, Kelly (Activist),
    BookChicago, IL : Haymarket Books, 2023. — 303.484 H4179L 2023