Black is beautiful. From the literature detailing our history and experience in illuminating prose, to the music that gives our experiences a bass line, creatives working across all media build and foster Black culture through art. LDF staff share their recommendations for the books, movies, music, podcasts, and TV shows that reflect LDF’s mission to “defend, educate, empower.”
A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism that offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.
The first major biography of LDF attorney Constance Baker Motley provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th Century.
Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the US Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and to cost him his life.
A tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves.
Entertainment legend and activist Cicely Tyson recalls her extraordinary life and the moments that shaped her seven-decade career.
Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar
Writer and performer Amber Ruffin and her sister Lacey Lamar share anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism.
Robert Jones Jr.
A novel about the forbidden union between two young men in bondage on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.
Lalita Tademy
The novel chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.
N.K. Jemisin
At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in a novel about power, oppression, and revolution.
Edwidge Danticat
Examining the lives of ordinary Haitians, particularly those struggling to survive under the brutal Duvalier regime, Danticat illuminates the distance between people’s desires and the stifling reality of their lives.
Nancy Johnson
The novel captures the heartbreaking divide between Black and white communities and offers both an unflinching view of motherhood in contemporary America and the never-ending quest to achieve the American Dream.
Naima Coster
A multi-layered drama about the long-lasting consequences of crime and the effects of school integration on two different families.
By Yamile Saied Mendez
When a girl is asked where she’s from—where she’s really from—none of her answers seems to be the right one.
By Ruby Bridges
The true story of an extraordinary little girl who became the first Black person to attend an all-white elementary school in New Orleans.
By Jerry Craft
Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.
By Matt de la Peña; Illustrated by Christian Robinson
A young boy rides the bus across town with his grandmother and learns to appreciate the beauty in everyday things.
By Suzanne Slade; Illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison
The inspiring true story of mathematician Katherine Johnson–made famous by the award-winning film Hidden Figures–who counted and computed her way to NASA and helped put a man on the moon.
By Virginia Hamilton; Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon
The fantasy tale of people in bondage who possessed ancient magic that enabled them to fly away to freedom and of those who did not have the opportunity to “fly” away, who remained in bondage with only their imaginations to set them free.
By Kacen Callendar
Felix Love, a transgender teen, grapples with identity and self-discovery while falling in love for the first time. Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.
By Akwaeke Emezi
There are no more monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam has grown up with this lesson all her life. But when she meets Pet, she must reconsider what she’s been told.
A half-hour sketch comedy with performances by a core cast of Black women, including executive producer and writer Robin Thede.
A workplace comedy in which a group of teachers is brought together in a Philadelphia public school.
When a star high school football player from South Central is recruited to play for Beverly Hills High School, two separate worlds collide.
A family man struggles to gain a sense of cultural identity while raising his kids in a predominantly white, upper-middle-class neighborhood.
The drama series from Colin Kaepernick and Ava DuVernay explores Kaepernick’s high school years and the experiences that led him to become an activist.
The animated series follows a young boy, Craig, and his two friends, Kelsey and JP, as they go on adventures within a world of untamed, kid-dominated wilderness in the creek.
Chef and writer Stephen Satterfield traces the delicious, moving throughlines from Africa to Texas in this docuseries.
Julia Baker is a young African-American woman working as a nurse. She is also a widow (her husband died in Vietnam) trying to raise a young son alone.
Set in the New York of the late 80s and early 90s, this is a story of ball culture and the gay and trans community, the raging AIDS crisis and capitalism.
Late-night series from artist Terence Nance featuring a mix of vérité documentary, musical performances, surrealist melodrama and humorous animation as a stream-of-consciousness response to the contemporary American mediascape.
The inspiring story of trailblazing Black entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker who built a haircare empire that made her America’s first female self-made millionaire.
Tensions run high between Black citizens and white police officers in Jersey City when a Black teenager is critically injured by a police officer.
A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism that offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.
The podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. The hosts explore how race affects every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between.
Each week, Sam Sanders interviews people in the culture who deserve your attention. Plus weekly wraps of the news with other journalists.
Host and Black creative Shanetta McDonald has relatable conversations with women of color, sharing their stories and journeys throughout life, with an emphasis on improving overall wellness in mental, physical and spiritual health.
A quarterly series about the evolution of, and continued need for, racial justice advocacy. Brought to you by The Thurgood Marshall Institute at LDF.
Created and hosted by award-winning journalist Farai Chideya, Our Body Politic is unapologetically centered on reporting on not just how women of color experience the major political events of today, but how they’re impacting those very issues.
A podcast hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American civil rights advocate and a leading scholar of critical race theory.
Award-winning journalist LZ Granderson draws from his own lived experience as a gay, Black father to host thought-provoking, poignant and engaging conversations with some of the most influential and inspirational people in the LGBTQ+ community.
A show about being Black in America with stories that explore what it means to hold truth to power and this country to its promises. Told by people who have the most at stake.
Hosts Leila Day and Hana Baba start conversations and provide professionally-reported stories about what it means to be Black and how we talk about blackness.
The podcast reviews films with leading actors of color and analyzes them in the context of race and Hollywood’s diversity issues.
John Batiste
Teyana Taylor
Lauryn Hill
Curtis Mayfield
Black Men United
Mary Mary
Stevie Wonder
Beyoncé
Angie Stone
Solange
Jill Scott
Joi
H.E.R.
Sounds of Blackness
Bill Withers
The Isley Brothers
Anderson.Paak
