Join our History Book Club, where we’ll read books that educate, inspire pride in how Black Americans have contributed in great measure to our country, and motivate us to take action. In keeping with our mission, we want the History Book Club to be an active experience. We want our readers to connect with history and identify ways they can apply the history learned to combat racism and promote unity—and then do it.
The History Book Club meets at 7 PM CT on the last Wednesday of each month via Zoom. Click here to sign up for the mailing list to be notified of meetings and get a PDF of the History Book Club Calendar!
2023 History Book Club Calendar
Check out the calendar below and scroll down for book summaries and meeting dates.
The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight BiasSince January is a time of New Year’s Resolutions, we’ll begin the year by looking inward and checking for and correcting any biases we may have, then resolve how we can all be the “the person you mean to be,” be it in our every-day life or in response to the things we may read or in helping others. Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
22
February2023
History Book Club – Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black TeachingThis is a favorite from last year so we’re bringing it back for 2023. We’ll kick off Black History Month by learning why Carter G. Woodson created Black History Week, the meaning of fugitive pedagogy, how this all applies today, and much more. Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
29
March2023
For Labor, Race, and Liberty: George Edwin Taylor, His Historic Run for the White House, and the Making of Independent Black PoliticsTo celebrate Iowa History Month, we’re learning about George Edwin Taylor, who lived in Iowa from 1891 to 1910. One of his many accomplishments was being the “first African American ticketed as a political party’s nominee for president of the United States, running against Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.” Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
26
April2023
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a NationApril is International Black Women’s History Month and what better way to celebrate it than to celebrate Black motherhood. Through The Three Mothers, we’ll learn about the mothers who raised and shaped these three American heroes. Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
31
May2023
Homegoing: A NovelMembers heard Rachelle Chase on Iowa Public Radio’s Talk of Iowa Book Club discussing Homegoing last year and wanted to read it this year, so we added it. In only 320 pages, Homegoing covers 300 years of history through two sisters and eight generations, from Africa to the US, showing the reader the painful legacy of slavery through a myriad of characters. Though fiction, it is packed with historical detail. Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
28
June2023
The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of FreedomAs we celebrate Juneteenth and the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans, we look to The Emancipation Circuit to learn just how four million newly freed people organized themselves, built settlements, developed resources and social and political networks, and much more. Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
26
July2023
Negro With a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus GarveyThere’s a lot about Marcus Garvey that isn’t taught in schools. In Negro With a Hat, we’ll learn why Garvey wanted Black people to return to Africa, how Black nationalism and self-reliance were the foundation of his efforts — including his UNIA organization, which in 1917, had more than two million members and by 1926 had six-to-eleven million members spanning 40 countries — and much more. Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
30
August2023
Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Survived Slavery and Became MillionairesThe title says it all but here’s a little more detail from the book cover: “Between the years of 1830 and 1927, as the last generation of blacks born into slavery was reaching maturity, a small group of industrious, tenacious, and daring men and women broke new ground to attain the highest levels of financial success.” Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
27
September2023
Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom MovementWe chose this month for Freedom Farmers since Emancipation Day is celebrated in September. This statement convinced us to pick this book: “Whereas existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, this book reveals agriculture as a site of resistance and provides a historical foundation that adds meaning and context to current conversations around the resurgence of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans.” Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
25
October2023
Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in AmericaSomehow, we stumbled upon this book while looking for something related to Halloween. We chose it after reading the prologue by the author (in which she explained why she wrote the book) and learning that the book delved deeper than the crime. For example, it offers a glimpse into the life of an unconventional Black woman and “a window onto violence within the Black community and shows how that violence is deeply rooted in the pervasive racism of the criminal justice system.” We’re also interested in learning how investigation and court proceedings were handled in 1887. Click here for book details.
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper TogetherWe started the year thinking about how we could be “the person you mean to be.” Now, we’ll end the year looking at how racism has hurt all of us, not just Black people, and leave the year “with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game.” We’ll also determine our activism style so we can make a difference in 2024. Click here for book details.
7:00 PM CTZoom
The History Book Club meets at 7 PM CT on the last Wednesday of each month via Zoom. Click here to sign up for the mailing list to be notified of meetings and get a PDF of the History Book Club Calendar!
