10 must-read historical books like Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

Cover of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

By: Ibram X. Kendi

4.57

Format: 504 pages, Hardcover

An epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, Four Hundred Sou…

"Black people will always find each other in the passage between death and America"

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"And again we confront the problem of history: it's usually the powerful who get to write it."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"Z is for zealotry: national pride like an infinite zipline, hyperdrive, the fastest way down."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"There's dust, a scratch in a groove, and here we are repeating the same two seconds of "Strange Fruit."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

If you liked the historical plot in Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi , here is a list of 10 books like this:

Cover of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

1. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

By: Richard Rothstein

2.89

Format: None pages, Hardcover

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading auth… read more

Similar categories in Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist

2. Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color

By: None

3.68

Format: None pages, Paperback

An eye-opening account of how Black women, Indigenous women, and other women of color are uniquely … read more

Similar categories in None's Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

3. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

By: Michelle Alexander

3.77

Format: None pages, Hardcover

"As the United States celebrates the nation's 'triumph over race' with the election of Barack Obama… read more

Similar categories in Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

4. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

By: Isabel Wilkerson

3.69

Format: 121 pages, Hardcover

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chroni… read more

Similar categories in Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Cover of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

5. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Format: 544 pages, Hardcover

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken ca… read more

Similar categories in Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"[Scapegoating] blames societal ills on the groups with the least power and the least say in how the country operates while allowing the larger framework and those who control and reap the dividends o…"

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"To dehumanize another human being is not merely to declare that someone is not human, and it does not happen by accident. It is a process, a programming. It takes energy and reinforcement to deny wha…"

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Cover of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

6. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

By: Ibram X. Kendi

4.57

Format: 504 pages, Hardcover

An epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, Four Hundred Sou… read more

Similar categories in Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • essays
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"Black people will always find each other in the passage between death and America"

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"And again we confront the problem of history: it's usually the powerful who get to write it."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"Z is for zealotry: national pride like an infinite zipline, hyperdrive, the fastest way down."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"There's dust, a scratch in a groove, and here we are repeating the same two seconds of "Strange Fruit."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Cover of King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

7. King: A Life

By: Jonathan Eig

4.67

Format: 688 pages, Hardcover

The first full biography in decades, King mixes revelatory and exhaustive new research with brisk a… read more

Similar categories in Jonathan Eig's King: A Life book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
Cover of Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot

8. Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

By: Michael Harriot

4.59

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly… read more

Similar categories in Michael Harriot's Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family by Rachel Jamison Webster

9. Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family

By: Rachel Jamison Webster

3.90

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Placing famed almanac writer Benjamin Banneker at the forefront, Benjamin Banneker and Us weaves to… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Jamison Webster's Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones

10. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

By: Nikole Hannah-Jones

4.62

Format: 590 pages, Hardcover

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a revealing vision of the American past and present. … read more

Similar categories in Nikole Hannah-Jones's The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • essays
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

11. Poverty, by America

By: Matthew Desmond

4.27

Format: 284 pages, Hardcover

Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in Ameri… read more

Similar categories in Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
"To live and strive in modern America is to participate in a series of morally fraught systems. If a family’s entire financial livelihood depends on the value of its home, it’s not hard to understand …"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"The rest of us, on the ·other hand-we members of the protected classes-have grown increasingly· dependent on our welfare programs. In 2020 the federal government spent more than $193 billion on homeo…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"In her book The Government-Citizen Disconnect, the political scientist Suzanne Mettler reports that 96 percent of American adults have relied on a major government program at some point in their live…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

Cover of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles

12. All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake

By: Tiya Miles

3.95

Format: 385 pages, Hardcover

In a display case in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture sits… read more

Similar categories in Tiya Miles's All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • african american
  • audiobook
"Though necessary to the work of uncovering the past, archives are nevertheless limited and misleading storehouses of information. While at times imposing and formal enough as to seem all-encompassing…"

-Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake

Cover of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather  McGhee

13. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

By: Heather McGhee

4.63

Format: 415 pages, Hardcover

Heather McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the Am… read more

Similar categories in Heather McGhee's The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"They have to make Americans afraid of one another. They're exploiting fear in America to sell guns."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"Ultimately, an economy, the rules we abide by and set for what's fair and who merits what, is an expression of our moral understanding."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"Instead of being blind to race, color blindness makes people blind to racism, unwilling to acknowledge where its effects have shaped opportunity or to use race-conscious solutions to address it."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"It's often unconscious, but their perception of The Other as undeserving is so important to their perception of themselves as deserving that they'll tear apart the web that supports everyone, includi…"

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

Cover of A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib

14. A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

By: Hanif Abdurraqib

4.60

Format: 301 pages, Hardcover

A stirring meditation on Black performance in America from the New York Times bestselling author of… read more

Similar categories in Hanif Abdurraqib's A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • essays
  • african american
  • audiobook
"When someone loves loudly, with everything they have in them, the withholding of that loud love, even briefly, feels impossible to endure."

-Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

"If I am going to be afraid, I might as well do it honest. Arm in arm with everyone I love, adorned in blood and bruises, singing jokes on our way to the grave."

-Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

"I have wanted to die enough times in my life to understand the idea that wanting to die is not a foolish thing... I don't mean to prop up the idea of wanting an exit, but for me, not to imagine it as…"

-Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

"Of the many things America loves to pat itself on the back about, one of the things is an obsession with exploration, or the desire to seek places beyond the places you are from or the places you hav…"

-Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

Cover of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint   Smith

15. How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

By: Clint Smith

4.71

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a… read more

Similar categories in Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Just as he did during the Slavery at Monticello tour, David did not mince words. "There’s a chapter in Notes on the State of Virginia ,"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Jefferson believed himself to be a benevolent slave owner, but his moral ideals came second to, and were always entangled with, his own economic interests and the interests of his family."

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"But not enough people spoke about the reasons so many black children grow up communities saturated with poverty and violence. Not enough people spoke about how these realities were the result of deci…"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Cover of Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

16. Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

By: Ijeoma Oluo

4.41

Format: 278 pages, Hardcover

From the author of the New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, a history of white… read more

Similar categories in Ijeoma Oluo's Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"It's the expectations that many white men have that they shouldn't have to climb, shouldn't have to struggle, as others do. It's the idea not only that they think they have less than others, but that…"

-Ijeoma Oluo, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America

Cover of The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs

17. The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation

By: Anna Malaika Tubbs

4.09

Format: 261 pages, Hardcover

In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates … read more

Similar categories in Anna Malaika Tubbs's The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
"Bertis, Louise, and Alberta, grew from children, to teenagers, to young women at a time when the birth of a nation characterized black men as scoundrels intent on brutalizing white women. When the pi…"

-Anna Malaika Tubbs, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation

"Their military experience made them more of a threat. Their pride was seen as something in need of control. Once again irrational white supremacist fears turned into extreme forms of brutality. Accor…"

-Anna Malaika Tubbs, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation

Cover of Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America by Joy-Ann Reid

18. Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America

By: Joy-Ann Reid

4.57

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

The host of MSNBC’s  The ReidOut  and  New York Times  bestselling author of  The Man Who Sold Amer… read more

Similar categories in Joy-Ann Reid's Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal by Bettina L. Love

19. Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal

By: Bettina L. Love

4.41

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

“I am an eighties baby who grew to hate school. I never fully understood why. Until now. Until Bett… read more

Similar categories in Bettina L. Love's Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
Cover of American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress by Wesley Lowery

20. American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress

By: Wesley Lowery

4.18

Format: 272 pages, Kindle Edition

“American Whitelash is indispensable. Really. It is.” — Ibram X. Kendi, author of  How to Be an Ant… read more

Similar categories in Wesley Lowery's American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
Cover of A Black Women's History of the United States (ReVisioning History) by Daina Ramey Berry

21. A Black Women's History of the United States (ReVisioning History)

By: Daina Ramey Berry

4.30

Format: 273 pages, Hardcover

A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American w… read more

Similar categories in Daina Ramey Berry's A Black Women's History of the United States (ReVisioning History) book and Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
  • audiobook

17 Top audiobook books like Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

Transform Your Habits

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Transform Your Habits

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Ibram X. Kendi

4.57

Transform Your Habits

King: A Life

Jonathan Eig

4.67

Transform Your Habits

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

Michael Harriot

4.59

View all the books

7 must-read race books like Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America by Joy-Ann Reid

Transform Your Habits

James

Percival Everett

4.54

Transform Your Habits

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

Antonia Hylton

4.27

Transform Your Habits

Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine

Uché Blackstock

4.46

Transform Your Habits

Medgar & Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story that Awakened America

Joy-Ann Reid

4.57

View all the books

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