Black History Month : Children’s Biographies


  • Pinkney, Andrea Davis.
    Let it shine : stories of Black women freedom fighters
    Summary:Tells the stories of ten African-American women freedom fighters.


  • Rockliff, Mara
    Born to swing : Lil Hardin Armstrong’s life in jazz
    Summary:Ever since she was a young girl, Lil Hardin played music with a beat. She jammed at home, at church, and even at her first job in a music store. At a time when women’s only place in jazz was at the microphone, Lil earned a spot playing piano in Chicago’s hottest band.


  • Harrison, Vashti
    Little leaders : bold women in black history
    Summary:Features female figures of black history, including abolitionist Sojourner Truth, pilot Bessie Coleman, chemist Alice Ball, politician Shirley Chisholm, mathematician Katherine Johnson, poet Maya Angelou, and filmmaker Julie Dash.


  • Hearth, Amy Hill
    Streetcar to justice : how Elizabeth Jennings won the right to ride in New York
    Summary:"Amy Hill Hearth uncovers the story of a little-known figure in U.S. history in this fascinating biography. In 1854, a young African American woman named Elizabeth Jennings won a major victory against a New York City streetcar company, a first step in the process of desegregating public transportation in Manhattan. This illuminating and important piece of the history of the fight for equal rights, illustrated with photographs and archival material from the period, will engage fans of Phillip Hoose’s Claudette Colvin and Steve Sheinkin’s Most Dangerous. One hundred years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Elizabeth Jennings’s refusal to leave a segregated streetcar in the Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan set into motion a major court case in New York City."–Provided by publisher.


  • Bolden, Tonya
    Facing Frederick : the life of Frederick Douglass, a monumental American man
    Summary:Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) is best known for the telling of his own emancipation. But there is much more to Douglass’s story than his time spent enslaved and his famous autobiography. Facing Frederick captures the whole complicated, and at times perplexing, person that he was. Statesman, suffragist, writer, and newspaperman, this book focuses on Douglass the man rather than the historical icon.


  • Petry, Ann
    Harriet Tubman : conductor on the Underground Railroad
    Summary:Harriet Tubman was born a slave and dreamed of being free. She was willing to risk everything including her own life to see that dream come true. After her daring escape, Harriet became a conductor on the secret Underground Railroad, helping more than three hundred other slaves make the dangerous journey to freedom.


  • Weatherford, Carole Boston
    Voice of freedom : Fannie Lou Hamer, spirit of the civil rights movement
    Summary:Presents a collage-illustrated treasury of poems and spirituals inspired by the life and work of civil rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer.


  • Hudson, Cheryl Willis
    Brave. Black. First. : 50+ African American women who changed the world
    Summary:Profiles notable African American women in various fields from Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Tubman, and Ida B. Wells to Condoleeza Rice, Beyoncé, and the founders of Black Lives Matter.