Picture Books for Black History Month

Presents a picture book biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, youngest of twenty children born to African American sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, who grew up to become a hero of the civil rights movement.

Presents the life of nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks who became the youngest known child to be arrested for picketing against Birmingham segregation practices in 1963.

Jean-Michael Basquiat and his unique, collage-style paintings rocked to fame in the 1980s as a cultural phenomenon unlike anything the art work had ever seen. But before that, he was a little boy who saw art everywhere: in poetry books and museums, in games and in the words that we speak, and in the pulsing energy of New York City. Now, award-winning illustrator Javaka Steptoe's vivid text and bold artwork echoing Basquiat's own introduce young readers...

As a young girl in Florida in the 1890s, Augusta enjoyed nothing more than playing with clay. She would sculpt it into little figures: cows, chickens, ducks. Augusta's mother didn't mind but her father, a stern preacher, felt the girl was wasting time on idle nonsense. Augusta's sculpting talent blossomed as she grew into a young woman. Eventually, she found herself at a crossroad. Augusta wanted to pursue a career as an artist, but to do so she

...

Growing up in the segregated town of Clarksville, Tennessee, in the 1960s, Alta's family cannot afford to buy her new sneakers--but she still plans to attend the parade celebrating her hero Wilma Rudolph's three Olympic gold medals.

Under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, children and teenagers march against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.

Describes Tubman's spiritual journey as she hears the voice of God guiding her north to freedom on that very first trip to escape the brutal practice of forced servitude. Tubman would make nineteen subsequent trips back south, never being caught, but none as profound as this first one.

Explores the previously uncelebrated but pivotal contributions of NASA's African American women mathematicians to America's space program, describing how Jim Crow laws segregated them despite their groundbreaking successes. Includes biographies on Dorothy Jackson Vaughan (1910-2008), Mary Winston Jackson (1921-2005), Katherine Colman Goble Johnson (1918-), Dr. Christine Mann Darden (1942-).

This extraordinary union of poetry and monumental artwork captures the movement for civil rights in the United States, and honors its most elegant inspiration, Coretta Scott King.

Highlights the life and legacy of Arturo Schomburg who worked during the Harlem Renaissance to raise awareness of Afro-Latin American and African American achievements and the contributions they made to society. Includes a timeline.