15 Books Every Black Woman Should Read

Stories that will inspire and empower you.

Elevate Your Mind! - When’s the last time you got lost in a really good book? Thanks to a fast-paced world of iPhones, Facebook and online news, it may have been a minute. But no worries: delve into these 15 books from our past and present are by and for Black women. They will inspire, empower and educate you. By Kellee Terrell (@kelleent) (Photo: Laura Flugga/Getty Images)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker - Cliché or not, Alice Walker's National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple, deserves to be on any and every reading list, especially those with an LGBT focus. The landmark novel tells the story of Celie, a southern Black woman who suffers a lifetime of abuse from her father and, later, her husband before meeting Shug, a sultry, confident blues singer whose sisterhood helps Celie to come into her own.(Photo: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America - One of our favorite Black intellectuals, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry takes us on the never-ending journey of how Black women in this country have been perceived. From Jezebel to Mammy to the “strong” Black woman, this book will enrage and inspire you at the same time. (Photo: Yale University Press)
Kindred  - Octavia Butler’s science fiction novel fuses together time travel, slavery and contemporary race relations to tell a haunting tale of how the horrors of the past continue to affect us in the present. An instant page-turner, you will be hooked from the first few pages. (Photo: Beacon Press)For Colored Girls  - Ntozake Shange’s beautifully radical choreopeom, which fuses choreographed dance and poetry, conveys the trials and tribulations of black women who are represented by a range of colors. While the women experience heartbreaking hardships — rape, abortion, prostitution, loneliness and abuse — they somewhow come together and heal.  (Photo: Scribner Publishing)

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The Color Purple - Told in a series of diary entries, Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in the 1930s South tells the heartbreaking and inspiring story of Celie as she struggles with sexual violence, searching for her sister and discovering her own sexuality as a lesbian. (Photo: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)

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