100 books like Alexander Crummell

By Wilson Jeremiah Moses,

Here are 100 books that Alexander Crummell fans have personally recommended if you like Alexander Crummell. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

Rick Swegan Author Of The Practice of Ethical Leadership: Insights from Psychology and Business in Building an Ethical Bottom Line

From my list on moral courage in a world where courage seems to be lacking.

Why am I passionate about this?

For a long time, I’ve been intrigued by the different ways that people reason about moral issues. Add to that a mystification about why smart people do unethical things and you have the basis for our book on ethical leadership. I’ve spent the better part of my career evaluating and coaching potential leaders and realized relatively recently that I wanted to work with people who did the “right thing.” Demonstrating the moral courage to speak up in the face of opposition has become increasingly difficult—hence my list of books on moral courage. I hope you enjoy it.

Rick's book list on moral courage in a world where courage seems to be lacking

Rick Swegan Why did Rick love this book?

I read a lot, and this book always shows up in my top five all-time favorites.

Lovingly written, Blight draws a compelling picture of a complex, endlessly fascinating human being. I love the power of Douglass’s words and voice. In my opinion, this is a great book about the man who arguably may be the greatest African American our country has produced. He was a voice for social justice in a time and place where speaking up brought real physical risk. 

By David W. Blight,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Frederick Douglass as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History**

"Extraordinary...a great American biography" (The New Yorker) of the most important African-American of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era.

As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with…


Book cover of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

Susanna Ashton Author Of A Plausible Man: The True Story of the Escaped Slave Who Inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin

From my list on new discoveries in Black History.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I moved to South Carolina some 25 years ago, I found understanding all the history around me challenging. Even more than that, I found it hard to talk about! Politics and history get mixed up in tricky ways. I worked with students to understand stories about plantation sites, leading me to start reading the words of survivors of captivity. I started reading slave narratives and trying to listen to what people had to say. While sad sometimes, their words are also hopeful. I now read books about our nation’s darkest times because I look for ways to guide us to a better future. 

Susanna's book list on new discoveries in Black History

Susanna Ashton Why did Susanna love this book?

I was skeptical! I know the Crafts’ history and have read all the scholarship out there. What could be new? But once I started reading, I was IN IT. The author does a marvelous job depicting minute-by-minute decisions this enslaved husband and wife had to make as they carefully and desperately escaped from Georgia, with the wife disguised as a young white man accompanied by “his” enslaved manservant.

How to speak with conductors? How to avoid inquisitive travelers? These kinds of terrifying problems made up their escape, and Woo walks us through them with tight but helpful context to explain the laws that surrounded them (which they broke) and the politics of freedom movements that they faced once they arrived North. An exhilarating read! 

By Ilyon Woo,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Master Slave Husband Wife as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the…


Book cover of Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad

Richard J.M. Blackett Author Of Samuel Ringgold Ward: A Life of Struggle

From my list on abolitionist biographies about African American history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was not trained in African American history, but first developed a passion for it during my first teaching job in Pittsburgh, where a number of my colleagues were interested in locating the origins of Black Nationalism and began researching the life of a local black physician, Martin R. Delany. That led me to a wider exploration of nineteenth-century African American history.

Richard's book list on abolitionist biographies about African American history

Richard J.M. Blackett Why did Richard love this book?

A child of slavery, Still became a major figure in the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia which worked to undermine slavery by aiding the enslaved to reach freedom.

Wish I had this book when I was writing my book. There is no better book on the movement in eastern Pennsylvania and Still’s roll in it.

By Andrew K. Diemer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vigilance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The remarkable and inspiring story of William Still, an unknown abolitionist who dedicated his life to managing a critical section of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia—the free state directly north of the Mason-Dixon Line—helping hundreds of people escape from slavery.

Born free in 1821 to two parents who had been enslaved, William Still was drawn to antislavery work from a young age. Hired as a clerk at the Anti-Slavery office in Philadelphia after teaching himself to read and write, he began directly assisting enslaved people who were crossing over from the South into freedom. Andrew Diemer captures the full range…


Book cover of David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City

Richard J.M. Blackett Author Of Samuel Ringgold Ward: A Life of Struggle

From my list on abolitionist biographies about African American history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was not trained in African American history, but first developed a passion for it during my first teaching job in Pittsburgh, where a number of my colleagues were interested in locating the origins of Black Nationalism and began researching the life of a local black physician, Martin R. Delany. That led me to a wider exploration of nineteenth-century African American history.

Richard's book list on abolitionist biographies about African American history

Richard J.M. Blackett Why did Richard love this book?

An early proponent of the rights of Black Americans, Ruggles, a free black, devoted his life to protecting Blacks from the scourge of kidnapping and protecting the enslaved who managed to make it to freedom in New York City.

Everyone should know about this early fighter against slavery and racial discrimination.

By Graham Russell Gao Hodges,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked David Ruggles as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

David Ruggles (1810-1849) was one of the most heroic--and has been one of the most often overlooked--figures of the early abolitionist movement in America. Graham Russell Gao Hodges provides the first biography of this African American activist, writer, publisher, and hydrotherapist who secured liberty for more than six hundred former bond people, the most famous of whom was Frederick Douglass. A forceful, courageous voice for black freedom, Ruggles mentored Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and William Cooper Nell in the skills of antislavery activism. As a founder of the New York Committee of Vigilance, he advocated a ""practical abolitionism"" that included civil…


Book cover of The Dilemma of a Ghost

Portia Owusu Author Of Spectres from the Past: Slavery and the Politics of "History" in West African and African-American Literature

From my list on the African experience of slavery and its afterlives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a scholar of African and African American literature with interests in the cultures, histories, and philosophies of Africa and the diaspora. Currently, I teach and research at Texas A&M University. The history of the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies are huge components of my current research; it is also the topic of my doctoral research which I completed in 2017 at The School of Oriental African Studies (SOAS), The University of London. 

Portia's book list on the African experience of slavery and its afterlives

Portia Owusu Why did Portia love this book?

The 1960s and 70s were periods of Black Consciousness, both in Africa and the diaspora. At the heart of this was Pan-Africanism, a political ideology built on historical and cultural links between Black people everywhere. At the heart of these ideas was a psychical and physical “return” to Africa, the “motherland”. This short, but powerful play, explore these politics in the marriage of Ato Yawson and Eulalie Rush, a Ghanaian man and an African-American woman who emigrate from the US to Ghana in search of racial and cultural harmony. What occurs is a dramatization of what happens when political ideologies are applied to private lives. What I love about this text is its confrontation of slavery as traumas that cannot be easily erased by political rhetoric and national endeavors to “move on.”

By Christina Ama Ata. Aidoo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Dilemma of a Ghost as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of In Search of Brightest Africa: Reimagining the Dark Continent in American Culture, 1884-1936

Stephen Tuffnell Author Of Made in Britain: Nation and Emigration in Nineteenth-Century America

From my list on the USA and the world in the nineteenth century.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of the United States' global pasts. What excites me most in both research and teaching is approaching familiar topics from unconventional angles whether through unfamiliar objects or comparative perspectives. To do so I have approached the US past from the perspective of its emigrants and the global history of gold rushes, and am doing so now in two projects: one on the ice trade and another on the United States’ imperial relationship with Africa between the Diamond Rush of 1867 and the First World War. I currently teach at the University of Oxford where I am a Fellow in History at St Peter’s College.

Stephen's book list on the USA and the world in the nineteenth century

Stephen Tuffnell Why did Stephen love this book?

This is a breathtaking book. The image of the “Dark Continent” seems so ingrained in our understanding of how Africa was perceived in the nineteenth century that it’s hard to overturn it. Jones does just that, showing how Pan-Africanists, naturalists, and filmmakers reimagined Africa as a site of regeneration for a variety of different ideas. But it’s about more than that – it’s a serious challenge to confront what you think you know about Africa today too.

By Jeannette Eileen Jones,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In Search of Brightest Africa as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Traces the history of the idea of Africa with an eye to recovering the emergence of a belief in ""Brightest Africa"" - a tradition that runs through American cultural and intellectual history with equal force to its ""Dark Continent"" counterpart.


Book cover of The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches

Lori Latrice Martin Author Of White Sports/Black Sports: Racial Disparities in Athletic Programs

From my list on tensions in the African American experience.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born and raised in Nyack, New York, and all of my degrees are from colleges and universities in New York. I have always been interested in race relations in America and understanding their causes and consequences. Hope and despair are two themes that run through the experiences of people of African ancestry in America. The books I selected include fiction and nonfiction works that highlight promises made and promises unfulfilled.

Lori's book list on tensions in the African American experience

Lori Latrice Martin Why did Lori love this book?

I think WEB DuBois is one of the greatest scholars ever to live. I recommend this book because DuBois eloquently tackles some of American society's greatest challenges. I like that DuBois is not satisfied with contemporary explanations about racial inequities. I am grateful to DuBois for encouraging American society to explore the roles of race and racism and explaining the experiences of people of African ancestry in America.

By W. E. B. Du Bois,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Souls of Black Folk as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches is a 1903 work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African-American literature.


The book contains several essays on race, some of which had been published earlier in The Atlantic Monthly. To develop this work, Du Bois drew from his own experiences as an African American in American society. Outside of its notable relevance in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works…


Book cover of The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening

Alejandra Bronfman Author Of Isles of Noise: Sonic Media in the Caribbean

From my list on sound and why you should care about it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been doing research in the Caribbean for twenty-five years. The region is diverse and magnificent. Caribbean people have sought creative solutions for racial inequality, climate and sustainability, media literacy and information, women’s and family issues. The transnational connections with the US are complex and wide-ranging, and knowing more about this region is an urgent matter. I work to understand how sound and media work because they structure our reality in important ways. Listening as a way of approaching relationships in work and play is key to our survival. So is understanding how media works, where we get our information from, and how to tell what’s relevant, significant, and true, and what is not. 

Alejandra's book list on sound and why you should care about it

Alejandra Bronfman Why did Alejandra love this book?

The author points to the ways American media designated sound as “black” or “white” even as “colorblindness” became the dominant paradigm for liberal attitudes towards race. While Americans claimed that they didn’t “see race”, they were exposed to an increasingly segregated soundscape and media environment. Stoever opens up new ways for us to listen to familiar voices, such as those of WEB du Bois, Lena Horne, Lead Belly, Richard Wright, and many more.

By Jennifer Lynn Stoever,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Sonic Color Line as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The unheard history of how race and racism are constructed from sound and maintained through the listening ear.
Race is a visual phenomenon, the ability to see "difference." At least that is what conventional wisdom has lead us to believe. Yet, The Sonic Color Line argues that American ideologies of white supremacy are just as dependent on what we hear-voices, musical taste, volume-as they are on skin color or hair texture. Reinforcing compelling new ideas about the relationship between race and sound with meticulous historical research, Jennifer Lynn Stoever helps us to better understand how sound and listening not only…


Book cover of The Portable Anna Julia Cooper

Sandrine Bergès Author Of Liberty in Their Names: The Women Philosophers of the French Revolution

From my list on by or about women philosophers you should know.

Why am I passionate about this?

At school I fell in love philosophy. But at university, as I grew older, I started to feel out of place: all the authors we read were men. I loved Plato, but there was something missing. It didn’t occur to me until I was in my thirties to look for women in the history of philosophy! I read Wollstonecraft first, then Olympe de Gouges, and the other women I wrote about in my book, and now I’m looking at women philosophers from the tenth to the nineteenth century. There is a wealth of work by women philosophers out there. Reading their works has made philosophy come alive for me, all over again. 

Sandrine's book list on by or about women philosophers you should know

Sandrine Bergès Why did Sandrine love this book?

Anna Julia Cooper is one of the nineteen and twentieth American philosophers I find most exciting.

Her book, A Voice from the South, is the first feminist book to introduce the idea of intersectionality! She spent her very long lifetime writing about education, women’s rights, racism, and she has a fascinating correspondence with the intellectuals of her time, including W.E.B Dubois.

But until recently getting hold of her writings wasn’t terribly easy, unless you were willing to read online, or had access to a good academic library.

This beautiful and cheap edition is a godsend and everyone should buy it. 

By Anna Julia Cooper, Shirley Moody-Turner (editor), Henry Louis Gates, Jr (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Portable Anna Julia Cooper as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A collection of essential writings from the iconic foremother of Black intellectual history, feminism and activism

The Portable Anna Julia Cooper will introduce a new generation of readers to an educator, public intellectual and community activist whose prescient insights and eloquent prose underlie some of the most important developments in modern American intellectual thought and African-American social and political activism.

This volume brings together, for the first time, Anna Julia Cooper's major collection of essays, A Voice from the South, along with several previously unpublished poems, plays, journalism and selected correspondences, including over thirty previously unpublished letters between Anna Julia…


Book cover of W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America

Colin Koopman Author Of How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person

From my list on data ethics (and data politics).

Why am I passionate about this?

Colin Koopman researches and teaches about technology ethics at the University of Oregon, where he is a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the interdisciplinary certificate program in New Media & Culture.  His research pursuits have spanned from the history of efforts in the early twentieth century to standardize birth certificates to our understanding of ourselves as effects of the code inscribed into our genes.  Koopman is currently at work on a book that will develop our understanding of what it takes to achieve equality and fairness in data systems, tentatively titled Data Equals.

Colin's book list on data ethics (and data politics)

Colin Koopman Why did Colin love this book?

W.E.B. Du Bois is widely acknowledged as the leading activist for racial equality of his generation. But until very recently little had been known of his deep commitment to the pursuit of equality within and through data technology. As Du Bois was preparing notes for his famous 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk, he was also preparing an exposition of what we would today call “infographics” (or what the editors of this volume aptly call “data portraits”) for exhibition at the 1900 Paris Exposition world’s fair. This volume handsomely reproduces for the first time a full-color complete set of Du Bois’s charts, graphs, maps, and ingenious spirals. A beautiful book to live with, it also subtly transforms one’s understanding of the history of racial progress and inequality in America.

By The W E B Du Bois Center at the Universi,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"As visually arresting as it is informative."-The Boston Globe

"Du Bois's bold colors and geometric shapes were decades ahead of modernist graphic design in America."-Fast Company's Co.Design

W.E.B. Du Bois's Data Portraits is the first complete publication of W.E.B. Du Bois's groundbreaking charts, graphs, and maps presented at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Famed sociologist, writer, and Black rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois fundamentally changed the representation of Black Americans with his exhibition of data visualizations at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Beautiful in design and powerful in content, these data portraits make visible a wide spectrum of African American culture, from…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Abolitionist, African Americans, and W. E. B. Du Bois?

Abolitionist 15 books
African Americans 801 books
W. E. B. Du Bois 12 books