Community Corner
Berlin-Peck Library Has Several Books For Black History Month
Black History Month is in February, with Berlin's library offering several titles to borrow to commemorate the celebration.
BERLIN, CT — The Berlin-Peck Memorial Library is celebrating Black History Month by promoting several works available on the topic.
The library, which is located at 234 Kensington Road, Berlin, offers gripping non-fiction, personal memoirs, and inspiring biographies shedding light on pivotal moments and extraordinary individuals.
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"Immerse yourself in fiction that celebrates the richness of Black culture. Explore, learn, and celebrate the stories that shape our history," wrote the library.
This list includes:
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Non-Fiction
You Get What You Pay For
Essays
Morgan Parker
In this memoir-in-essays, the author, weaving unflinching criticism with intimate anecdotes, examines America’s cultural history and relationship to black Americans through the ages, providing a deeper examination of racial consciousness and its effects on mental well-being today.
Legacy
A Black Physician Reckons With Racism In Medicine
Uche Blackstock
Part searing indictment of our healthcare system, part generational family memoir, part call to action, a physician and thought leader on bias and racism in healthcare recounts her journey to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Swans Of Harlem
Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years Of Sisterhood, And Their Reclamation Of A Groundbreaking History
Karen Valby
Steeped in the glamour and grit of professional ballet, this captivating account of five extraordinarily accomplished Black ballerinas, celebrates both their historic careers and their 50-year sisterhood, offering a window into the history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.
The Jazzmen
How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, And Count Basie Transformed America
Larry Tye
Based on more than 250 interviews, this meticulously researched history of Black America in the early-to-mid 1900s through three longtime kings of jazz—Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie—who opened America’s eyes and souls to their magnificent music, writing the soundtrack for the civil rights movement.
We Refuse
A Forceful History Of Black Resistance
Kellie Carter Jackson
Offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women, a noted historian presents a fundamental corrective to the historical record, a love letter to Black resilience and a path toward liberation.
An Emancipation Of The Mind
Radical Philosophy, The War Over Slavery, And The Refounding Of America
Matthew Stewart
This is a story about a dangerous idea-one which ignited revolutions in America, France, and Haiti; burst across Europe in the revolutions of 1848; and returned to inflame a new generation of intellectuals to lead the abolition movement-the idea that all men are created equal.
Hell Put To Shame
The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre And The Horror Of America’s Second Slavery
Earl Swift
The story of the murder of eleven Black farmhands on a Georgia plantation in 1921, a crime that exposed the ‘peonage system,’ a form of legal enslavement established after the Civil War across the American South.
Combee
Harriet Tubman, The Combahee River Raid, And Black Freedom During The Civil War
Edda L Fields-Black
Tells the story of the Combahee River Raid, one of Harriet Tubman’s most extraordinary accomplishments, based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants.
The Barn
The Secret History Of A Murder In Mississippi
Wright Thompson
A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long.
An African History Of Africa
From The Dawn Of Humanity To Independence
Zeinab Badawi
This sweeping historical survey traces Africa’s rich legacy from prehistory to the present, exploring ancient civilizations, medieval empires and colonialism’s impact, while highlighting African voices and perspectives to offer a long-overdue account of the continent’s global significance.
The Survivors Of The Clotilda
The Lost Stories Of The Last Captives Of The American Slave Trade
Hannah Durkin
Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Zora Neale Hurston’s rediscovered classic Barracoon, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors–the last documented survivors of any slave ship–whose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways
Bloody Tuesday
The Untold Story Of The Struggle For Civil Rights In Tuscaloosa
John M Giggie
The dramatic story of one of the most violent episodes of the civil rights movement and its role in the ongoing reckoning with racial injustice in the United States.
I Am Nobody’s Slave
How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free
Lee Hawkins
This memoir examines a Black family’s pursuit of the American Dream, exploring generational trauma from slavery and systemic racism, revealing how racial violence shaped their lives, and uncovering the emotional toll and resilience passed down through generations.
The Message
Ta-Nehisi Coates
The #1 New York Times best-selling author of Between the World and Me travels the world to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.
The Containment
Detroit, The Supreme Court, And The Battle For Racial Justice In The North
Michelle Adams
A legal scholar chronicles Detroit’s struggle for school integration and the impact of the 1974 Milliken v. Bradley case halting Northern desegregation efforts, illuminating the roles of activists and key figures, and revealing how systemic inequalities were upheld, shaping contemporary debates on racial justice and affirmative action.
The Black Utopians
Searching For Paradise And The Promised Land In America
Aaron Robertson
A lyrical meditation on how Black Americans have envisioned utopia—and sought to transform their lives.
Blues In Stereo
The Early Works Of Langston Hughes, 1921-1927
Langston Hughes
Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes was most well-known for his poems, novels, and plays that highlight Black American life in post-slavery America. Blues in Stereo features some of Hughes’s earliest undiscovered writings; the collection of his poems published in The Crisis, a monthly publication form the NAACP edited by W.E.B. DuBois from 1910-1934; and even an original unreleased play co-written with DuBois, complete with a full score. This beautifully rendered collection of Hughes’s early works is sure to become a bookshelf staple.
Biography and Memoir
The Life And Times Of Hannah Crafts
The True Story Of The Bondwoman’s Narrative
Gregg Hecimovich
A groundbreaking study of the first Black female novelist and her life as an enslaved woman, from the biographer who solved the mystery of her identity, with a preface by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Above The Noise
My Story Of Chasing Calm
DeMar DeRozan
From one of the most outspoken and respected NBA athletes comes a groundbreaking and remarkable memoir chronicling a very public struggle with depression, in the hopes that other young men will not suffer alone.
Bits And Pieces
My Mother, My Brother, And Me
Whoopi Goldberg
From multi-award winner Whoopi Goldberg comes a new and unique memoir of her family and their influence on her early life.
Kamala’s Way
An American Life
Dan Morain
A revelatory biography of the first Black woman to stand for Vice President charts how the daughter of two immigrants in segregated California became one of the most effective power players in the United States.
Lovely One
Ketanji Brown Jackson
In this unflinching account, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court pulls back the curtain to marry the public record of her life with what is less known, chronicling her extraordinary path to become a jurist on America’s highest court.
John Lewis
A Life
David Greenberg
Based on interviews and previously unreleased FBI files, a professor of history at Rutgers University presents the definitive biography of John Lewis’s journey from rural Alabama poverty to becoming a pivotal Civil Rights leader and “conscience of Congress.
Night Flyer
Harriet Tubman And The Faith Dreams Of A Free People
Tiya Miles
From the National-Book-Award-winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand.
Life’s Too Short
Darius Rucker
Raised by a single mother in Charleston, South Carolina, Darius Rucker founded Hootie & the Blowfish with three classmates at the University of South Carolina in 1986. Nearly 40 years into his illustrious career, Darius tells the story of his life through the music that made him, including songs by everyone from Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder to R.E.M., KISS, Prince, and, of course, his own music with Hootie and as a solo artist.
Fiction
Swift River
Essie Chambers
In 1987, the only Black person in all Swift River after her Pop disappeared seven years ago, Diamond Newberry, receiving a letter from a relative she’s never met, is introduced to two generations of African American Newberry women, gaining a sense of her place in the world and in her family.
Acts Of Forgiveness
Maura Cheeks
A single mother is surprised when her family blocks her from uncovering her family’s ancestry, past and secrets while trying to prove she was descended from slaves in order to participate in the nation’s first federal reparations program.
Dances
Nicole Cuffy
Promoted to principal dancer at the New York City Ballet, Cece Cordell, a young black woman, still feels like she doesn’t belong, and, despite her dream achievement, is faced with a choice that may derail her career, sending her on a pilgrimage to find her missing older brother and reclaim the parts of herself lost in the pursuit of her art.
The Mayor Of Maxwell Street
Avery Cunningham
An epic love story that explores the American Dream between the monolith of Jim Crow, the inflexible world of the original Black upper class, and the violence of 1920s Chicago.
James
Percival Everett
Describes the events of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of the enslaved Jim, who decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island after learning he is to be sold to a man in New Orleans.
Promise
Rachel Eliza Griffiths
In 1957 Salt Point, Maine, the Kindred sisters—as parts of the country call for freedom, equality and justice for black Americas—are seen as threats along with the town’s only other black family, and amid violence, prejudice and fear, they commit great acts of heroism and grace to survive.
Troubled Waters
Mary Annaise Heglar
In heartfelt, lyrical prose, celebrated author Mary Annaise Heglar weaves an unforgettable, distinctly Southern story of the enduring power of family, Black resistance, and the rising climate crisis.
All We Were Promised
Ashton Lattimore
A former enslaved housekeeper escapes to 1837 Philadelphia where she plays servant to her white-passing father and befriends a young abolitionist and risks everything to help another former slave, brought to the city by her plantation mistress.
Neighbors And Other Stories
Diane Oliver
Filled with unforgettable characters dealing with the dangers of Jim Crow racism, this powerful story collection paints incisive and intimate portraits of African American families in everyday moments of anxiety and crisis that look at how they use agency to navigate their predicaments.
Dixon, Descending
Karen Outen
A former Olympic-level runner working as a school psychologist abandons his family and students to join his brother on a quest to be the first black American men to summit Mount Everest, resulting in a tragedy that shatters his life.
The Blueprint
Rae Giana Rashad
In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States—a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences.
Ella
Diane Richards
In the vein of ‘The Paris Wife’ and ‘The Personal Librarian’ comes this debut novel, a magnificent work of ‘biographical fiction’ that reimagines the turbulent and triumphant early years of Ella Fitzgerald, arguably the greatest singer of the twentieth century.
The American Daughters
Maurice Carlos Ruffin
Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Ady, when she’s separated from her mother, meets Lenore, a free black woman who invites her to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters, setting her on a journey toward liberation and imagining a new future.
Good Dirt
Charmaine Wilkerson
The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake.
Ours
Phillip B Williams
Sweeping through 1830s Arkansas to rescue enslaved people, Saint, a fearsome conjuror, creates a town magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours, but, over time, as the town becomes vulnerable to intruders, some people wonder whether the community’s safety might by yet another form of bondage.
A Love Song For Ricki Wilde
Tia Williams
Leaving behind her socialite family in Atlanta, Ricki Wilde moves to New York to open a flower shop as the Harlem Renaissance swirls around her, in the new novel from the author of Seven Days in June.
Black Cloud Rising
David Wright Falade
Sergeant Richard Etheridge, the son of a slave and her master, must prove that his troops in the African Brigade are skilled and trustworthy as they raid the areas occupied by the Confederate Partisan Rangers in the fall of 1863.
It’s Elementary
Elise Bryant
A delightful, escapist romp that explores just how far parents will go to give their kids the very best, in this adult mystery debut.
A Pair Of Wings
Carole Hopson
Bessie, the daughter of a former slave, defies societal barriers and navigates love, mentorship, and challenges in pursuit of her passion for flying amidst the backdrop of racial discrimination and personal struggles during the 1920s.
American Daughters
Piper Huguley
Brought together by their fathers’ friendship, describes how the daughters of Booker T. Washington and Theodore Roosevelt became close friends and struggled together and supported each other through marriages, pregnancies, women’s rights and progressive causes.
Harlem Rhapsody
Victoria Christopher Murray
In 1919 Harlem, literary editor Jessie Redmon Fauset is at the forefront of a Black cultural renaissance, discovering talents like Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen, but her ambition and a secret affair with W.E.B. Du Bois threaten her legacy.
This Could Be Us
Kennedy Ryan
When her life explodes in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion, Soledad Barnes, while working to support her daughters, rediscovers herself, but when a man she shouldn’t want but can’t resist enters the picture, she wonders if she can be brave enough to make room for what could be.
This Cursed House
Del Sandeen
A young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover they’re under a curse, and they think she can break it.
Model Home
Rivers Solomon
Turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South.
We Came To Welcome You
Vincent Tirado
A married couple moves into a gated’community’ that slowly creeps into a pervasive dread and shines a light on systemic racism.
This press release was produced by the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.
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