African American Historical Fiction

Drawing on the 1898 overthrow of the Wilmington, North Carolina, government by white supremacists, Charles W. Chesnutt’s classic novel unmasked the racism of the post-Reconstruction South.

Kate, a recent college graduate, is still reeling from the deaths of her beloved parents when the discovery of hidden letters forces her to re-examine everything she knew about her family. Tacker, a young engineering student and all-around boy-hero, has returned from a West African odyssey where he fell in love with the local culture but was sent home in shame. Kate's and Tacker's stories come together when, on the same day and in different moments, they encounter a young African American man named Gaines. The relationship that develops between the three is complicated, as each one searches for love, freedom, and new beginnings.

Sally Harrison and her family are slaves on a plantation in Georgia. But when Master decides to sell Sally and her brother, the family escapes to seek shelter with a tribe of Seminoles who are rumored to adopt runaway slaves. After a perilous journey, Sally’s family finds and joins the tribe. But while her father and brother easily adjust to Indian ways, Sally can’t seem to find her place.

Belton Piedmont and Bernard Belgrave begin their lives as childhood friends, but that friendship is not bound to last. Belton (modeled on Booker T. Washington) is an African American integrationist; Bernard (modeled on W. E. B. Du Bois) is a biracial militant, and their lives, like their politics, quickly diverge. When they do meet again, at a Black nationalist community called “the Imperium,” the stakes could not be higher.

A friend's newspaper advertisement for a groom nets the most famous actor in London, Arthur Bex. Shy heiress Ester Croome proposes to elope with the handsome man, who she's secretly loved for two years, in order to escape an impending engagement arranged by her overbearing family. Trying to outlive the shadow of his villainous uncle, Bex needs to marry quickly - to a woman of good character. And smart, beautiful Ester fits the bill. But a harrowing trip to Gretna Green and dangerous abolition rallies prove to be a more treacherous stage than either imagined.

Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities. A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he’s a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love.

Macklin, Mississippi has been rocked to its core by the death of David Moss, the son of one of the town’s most influential man. Some believe that David’s fate was sealed after many of the desperate choices he made. Can his family heal after such a devastating loss? After Linda decides to leave town again, Annie has to figure out how to live with the burden of raising the children her sister left behind.

It is 1938, and a despondent president travels incognito on a mission to reconnect with the country. He hitches a ride with a 13-year-old boy on his journey of a lifetime: to deliver a Lincoln Zephyr convertible—a car of historic significance. Together, they travel the backroads of the South toward Virginia. The Secret Service plans to protect the president go awry during an overnight, nationwide calamity, and when a psychotic killer sets upon the pair, the joy of traveling becomes a race for survival. My Friend the President is a fun-filled adventure for old and young.

Henry Cebolla Shackleton es un pícaro niño esclavo en cuyo camino se cruza el legendario abolicionista John Brown, «el más americano de todos nosotros», en palabras de Henry David Thoreau; «el hijop--a asesino más infame y retorcío que jamás hayáis visto», a ojos del Cebolla. Comienza así la hilarante autobiografía de Henry, envuelto contra su voluntad en la cruzada antiesclavista del ejército de John Brown y obligado a hacerse pasar por una niña para sobrevivir.

The audiobook, The Arctic Jungles of Vietnam, is the life story of a Black soldier from the Deep South during the Vietnam war era. The story begins with a description of his family and how they survived with the bare minimum of necessities for a life in the South. His experiences in grade school and high school including the Superintendent of Autauga County School System’s commencement message are an integral part of the story. Further, we learn why and how this young man decided to go into the military.

When a bloody carriage appears at the front gate, Black’s greatest fear is realized. Mayhem has found its way to his doorstep, forcing him and the people to examine everyday life. In this fifth installment of The Black Series, the legendary Black is tasked with leading the people to a freer existence. He must also solve a deadly game of cat and mouse, while keeping the people from peril. Join Joan Vassar, Black, and the men, as they uncage the people from physical bondage, emancipate the people’s thoughts, and unshackle the people from fear.

A grandfather confronted with the fact that his family is woefully ignorant about their own lineage and legacy is determined to educate them. So begins the tale of his great-great-grandmother, Annabelle. Annabelle was a slave born on a cotton plantation in Mississippi and raised as a house servant, thanks to the plantation master's daughters having a fondness for her. The youngest daughter protects her as best she can from the wrath of the cruel master and his wife but then marries and leaves the plantation.

Beautiful and brilliantly talented Celia DeMille is a 19th-century concert artist who has garnered fame, sung all over the world, and amassed a fortune. But prejudice bars her from achieving her place in history as one of the world’s greatest singers, and she dies in poverty and obscurity.

A streetwise African American teenager hastily departs bigoted Anderson, South Carolina in the 1940s. During her travels over a span of nearly eighty years, she assumes the identity of her alter ego while living a good life as a nationally respected media mogul. But it is marked with deep-rooted secrets: One involving the murder of a White man and the other dealing with the disappearance of a prominent Black man, both from her past life in the Deep South.

Johnny Holt Jr. comes home to Kentucky for the summer to find his father, JJ, has made alliances with a notorious slave owner, Spanish-born Edmond Maguerro, to turn Holt Lands into a million-dollar plantation. Johnny is indifferent. Much as he hates the idea because of his liberal views about slavery, he doesn’t involve himself until he meets Elisa, one of his father’s new slaves.

In 1899, 10-year-old Olivia Truluck’s home in Missouri is torched by the Ku Klux Klan. Olivia and her family leave the Show-me state to settle in the Greenwood District, north of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Starting with the 1905 Tulsa oil boom, both Blacks and Whites prosper, but tragedy comes with World War I, followed by the 1918 influenza epidemic.

As the 1950s' Mau Mau war breaks out in the foothills of Mt. Kenya, Wambũi, a 14-year-old girl, leaves her besieged village to join a prestigious boarding school, a half day’s journey away by train. There, she becomes aware of her extraordinary mathematical abilities discovered by her teacher Eileen Atwood. Initially, Wambũi views Eileen’s attentions with suspicion and hostility, but over time, the two grow close and form a lifelong friendship.

The New York Times best-selling author of Wench returns to the Civil War era to explore the next chapter of history - the trauma of the war and the end of slavery - in this powerful story of love and healing about three people who struggle to overcome the pain of the past and define their own future.

Everybody knows about the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence in 1776. But the founders weren't the only ones who believed that everyone had a right to freedom. Mumbet, a Massachusetts enslaved person, believed it too. She longed to be free, but how? Would anyone help her in her fight for freedom? Could she win against the richest man in town? Mumbet was determined to try. Mumbet's Declaration of Independence tells her story for the first time in a biography. Her brave actions set a milestone on the road toward ending slavery in the United States.

Afice is the last of nine generations of women who have survived enslavement, sickness, and hunger. Alone at age seventeen, she sets out through the Louisiana swamps to follow the trail of her ancestors and hear their songs anew. On this journey, Afice must decide how to honor her ancestors while embracing her own future.