Love Exodusters? Readers share 100 books like Exodusters...

By Nell Irvin Painter,

Here are 100 books that Exodusters fans have personally recommended if you like Exodusters. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880

Kellie Carter Jackson Author Of We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance

From my list on black resistance to white supremacy with a path toward liberation.

Why am I passionate about this?

For most of my life, I have dedicated myself to confronting, combatting, or deconstructing white supremacy. It impacts everyone. Much of my work is about highlighting the ways Black people have refused and resisted racial discrimination, violence, and harm. We can never have too many tools, and equally important for me was being able to have tools that achieved their purpose. I wrote We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance to remind readers that there has never been a time in the history of this country when Black people have not fought back against their oppression.

Kellie's book list on black resistance to white supremacy with a path toward liberation

Kellie Carter Jackson Why did Kellie love this book?

Anytime I am ever asked about a book on my top list, Du Boisā€™s book is a staple. Is it over 700 pages? Yes. Was it written over 100 years ago? Almost! Still, Du Boisā€™ arguments are evergreen.

Written with accessible and some might argue biting language, Du Bois gets to the heart of what the Civil War was really fought over, not slavery, but labor. Before one can get free, you have to know why you were enslaved.

By W.E.B. Du Bois,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du
Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.

Black Reconstruction in America tells and interprets the story ofā€¦


Book cover of In Search of Canaan: Black Migration to Kansas, 1879-80

Charlotte Hinger Author Of Nicodemus

From my list on African Americans in the West after the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m a multi-award-winning novelist and Kansas historian. Through reading letters written by African Americans in Kansas, I realized that black people were a major political force. In fact, with the settlement of Nicodemus, for the first time in American history, enough black people had gathered in one place to dominate political decisions and prevail over the white community. No one had told the story of the three black powerhouses who shaped politics on a county, state, and national level. I was thrilled when University of Oklahoma Press published my academic book. It won second place in the Westernerā€™s International Best Book contest.

Charlotte's book list on African Americans in the West after the Civil War

Charlotte Hinger Why did Charlotte love this book?

Talk about primary sources! Do any exist that Athearn didnā€™t manage to locate? Not only is his writing highly readable, he includes details that can only be acquired through rigorous scholarship. In Search of Canann, explores the reasons for black peopleā€™s mass migration from Kansas. The South was suddenly deprived of workers. Due to the highly political atmosphere, the Senate organized a committee to investigate the ā€œpell-mell land rush to Kansas, an unreasoned almost mindless exodus toward some vague ideal, some western paradise, where all cares would vanish.ā€ 

By Robert G. Athearn,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Word spread across the southern farm country, and into the minds of those who labored over cotton or sugar crops, that the day of reckoning was near at hand, that the Lord had answered black prayers with the offer of deliverance in a western Eden. In this vast state where Brown had caused blood to flow in his righteous wrath, there was said to be land for all, and land especially for poor blacks who for so long had cherished the thought of a tiny patch of America that they could call their own. The soil was said to beā€¦


Book cover of The Black Towns

Charlotte Hinger Author Of Nicodemus

From my list on African Americans in the West after the Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m a multi-award-winning novelist and Kansas historian. Through reading letters written by African Americans in Kansas, I realized that black people were a major political force. In fact, with the settlement of Nicodemus, for the first time in American history, enough black people had gathered in one place to dominate political decisions and prevail over the white community. No one had told the story of the three black powerhouses who shaped politics on a county, state, and national level. I was thrilled when University of Oklahoma Press published my academic book. It won second place in the Westernerā€™s International Best Book contest.

Charlotte's book list on African Americans in the West after the Civil War

Charlotte Hinger Why did Charlotte love this book?

In addition to information about patterns of settlement and leadership, Crockett provides a rare glimpse into intra-racial prejudices. Was it better to have light-colored skin, or would pride in being black predominate? Some editors argued that ā€œpast association with whites had corrupted the race.ā€ Skin color was a criterion for social position in some communities, with attitudes varying from town to town. Most scholars are reluctant to touch this subject. I salute Crockettā€™s courage in delving into the hierarchy of color.   

By Norman L. Crockett,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From Appomattox to World War I, Black Americans continued their quest for a secure position in the American system. The problem was how to be both black and American-how to find acceptance, or even toleration, in a society in which the boundaries of normative behavior, the values, and the very definition of what it meant to be an American were determined and enforced by whites. A few black leaders proposed self-segregation inside the United States within the protective confines of an all-Black community as one possible solution. The Black-town idea reached its peak in the fifty years after the Civilā€¦


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorā€”and only womanā€”on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route upā€¦

Book cover of In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West 1528-1990

Why am I passionate about this?

If five gentlemen from Mexico, a colored/negro woman from Eatonville, Florida, a former President who happened to be white, with historical privilege, from Plains, Georgia, and two Professors of History can use their knowledge, training, Godā€™s gifts to help us to understand history better, why shouldn't I also be passionate and excited to write. Telling stories, writing, contributing, and unearthing lies and truths so that a child who looks like me ā€“ or who does not look like me ā€“ is provided a better world. Let me hokey about this ā€“ maybe the word is dorky ā€“ whatever, the privilege is mine.

Anthony's book list on history books which weave a wonderful tale, while making us laugh, scream, cry and think, while we are bowing and saying bravo at the same time!

Anthony Paul Griffin Why did Anthony love this book?

Years ago, I contributed a chapter to a book edited by Sara R. Massey. When Sara called to check on the progress of my chapter/contribution she excitedly told me about her just finishing reading Quintard Taylorā€™s book. She loved the book so much that she recommended I buy a copy. I promised to order the book. I kept my promise and almost missed getting my chapter to Sara because I appreciated Quintard Taylorā€™s book so much. Almost as if he was in my ear, his was a book full of did you know moments.

I understood fully when reading why Sara called. Taylor reminded me that this history is not necessarily parochialā€“ existing only in one location; rather, behavior, social mores and moving from one place to another, telling a familiar tale. A tale, not in the sense of making up history, but showing how the racial construct establishedā€¦

By Quintard Taylor,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked In Search of the Racial Frontier as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A landmark history of African Americans in the West, In Search of the Racial Frontier rescues the collective American consciousness from thinking solely of European pioneers when considering the exploration, settling, and conquest of the territory west of the Mississippi. From its surprising discussions of groups of African American wholly absorbed into Native American culture to illustrating how the largely forgotten role of blacks in the West helped contribute to everything from the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation ruling to the rise of the Black Panther Party, Quintard Taylor fills a major void in American history and reminds usā€¦


Book cover of Bring on the Blessings

Diana Day-Admire Author Of The Angels Within

From my list on books featuring diverse cultures.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am fascinated by the process of sharing stories and finding unique ones to experience. A member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I share my unmanageable at times life with others so they can see my life as typical, not abnormal. I believe I was put here on this earth to witness to others and open eyes and hearts to alternate lifestyles. I want to make a difference, and hope my writing may touch readers. No one else could have written my story, and it needs to be told. Mental health issues are difficult to share, but if we all remain silent, it will never get any easier.

Diana's book list on books featuring diverse cultures

Diana Day-Admire Why did Diana love this book?

Bring on the Blessings is one of the finest series I have ever read. I am always eager to find a new series that keeps me waiting for the next installment. Blessings by Beverly Jenkins is the best example I can think of.

When I read about the all Black town that took in 5 orphans and raised them, I got so caught up in each of their stories. I learned so much. Beverly calls her type of writing "edutainment." I now know why. Based on the true town in Kansas (Nicodemus) settled in the migration of the dusters of the civil war, I was all in. Fictional characters based on a real town make me want to visit the historic site.

My heart melted when the little mute girl finally spoke, the car thief who became a mechanic, and the whole town that deals out punishment by making thoseā€¦

By Beverly Jenkins,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Bring on the Blessings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bestselling author Beverly Jenkins makes the move to trade paperback with this rich and moving story that introduces us to the beautiful Kansas town of Henry Adams, and the townspeople who make it unique

Bernadine Brown is a woman with money to spend. Henry Adams is a town in desperate need of cash. But after Bernadine puts up the money, she has some ideas about how the town should be run. Will the townspeople be willing to shake up their comfortable lives to share the gift theyā€™ve been given with others who really need it?

One of the few allā€¦


Book cover of Night Song

Deborah Fletcher Mello Author Of Playing with Danger

From my list on the dark and stormy side of the human spirit.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an award-winning, national best-selling author who loves reading as much as I love writing. Combine that with a good, smooth bourbon and itā€™s a win-win. Like my literary journey, my love for bourbon has been filled with surprises and challenges. Romance writing found me. I didnā€™t go looking for it. The journey introduced me to great writers and amazing stories and taught me to write better. Distilleries could extol the health benefits of bourbon, but I discovered it can be subtle, soul-searing, and pairs beautifully with a good meal and an even better book. Like my writing, bourbon leaves you feeling like youā€™ve had a great meal and threw in dessert!

Deborah's book list on the dark and stormy side of the human spirit

Deborah Fletcher Mello Why did Deborah love this book?

Before being published I was very much a romance snob. I was a bookshelf elitist who thought that good literature did not include romance.

When my first book was labeled a romance novel, romance fans quickly let me know that what Iā€™d written wasnā€™t true romance, but they loved the book. So, I had to learn how to write romance and what better way than to read it.

Night Song was my first foray into historical romance with characters who looked like me. It was life changing and one of the most beautiful tales I had ever read. Lesson learned! The romance genre includes incredible stories, superb writing, and bourbon-sipping storylines and I had been missing out.

By Beverly Jenkins,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A Traitorous Heart . . .

Cara Lee Henson knows no soldier can be trusted to stay in one placeā€”and that includes handsome Sergeant Chase Jefferson of the Tenth Cavalry. Dallying with the dashing man in blue could cost the pretty, independent Kansas schoolteacher her job and her reputation. So Cara is determined to repel Chaseā€™s advancesā€”even though her aloof facade barely masks her smoldering desire.

A Blazing Passion . . .

Never before has Chase longed for a woman the way he ached for lovely Cara Lee. The strong-willed ebony beauty, however, will not surrender easily. But with tenderā€¦


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Book cover of We Had Fun and Nobody Died: Adventures of a Milwaukee Music Promoter

We Had Fun and Nobody Died by Amy T. Waldman,

This irreverent biography provides a rare window into the music industry from a promoterā€™s perspective. From a young age, Peter Jest was determined to make a career in live music, and despite naysayers and obstacles, he did just that, bringing national acts to his college campus atUW-Milwaukee, booking thousands ofā€¦

Book cover of Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era

James Traub Author Of What Was Liberalism?: The Past, Present, and Promise of a Noble Idea

From my list on the run-up to the American Civil War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a journalist and NYU professor whose primary field is American foreign policy. As a biographer, however, I am drawn to American history and, increasingly, to the history of liberalism. I am now writing a biography of that arch-liberal, Hubert Humphrey. My actual subject thus appears to be wars of ideas. I began reading in-depth about the 1850s, when the question of slavery divided the nation in half, while writing a short biography of Judah Benjamin, Secretary of State of the Confederacy. (Judah Benjamin: Counselor To The Confederacy will be published in October.) It was the decade in which the tectonic fault upon which the nation was built erupted to the surface. There's a book for me in there somewhere, but I haven't yet found it.

James' book list on the run-up to the American Civil War

James Traub Why did James love this book?

Americans experienced a kind of practice round of the Civil War when both Southern and  Northern settlers flocked into Kansas--the first determined to make it a slave state, the second, a free one. The savage political and military conflict left both sides convinced that the nation could not, in fact, survive half slave and half free. Bleeding Kansas, though a work of serious scholarship, draws heavily on the letters and diaries of those settlers to depict an irreconcilable clash of rival ideologies, ambitions, characters; you would not want to be caught in a bar with the drunken lowlifes who poured across the border from Missouri to rig elections on behalf of slave-owners.

By Nicole Etcheson,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Few people would have expected bloodshed in Kansas Territory. After all, it had few slaves and showed few signs that slavery would even flourish. But civil war tore this territory apart in the 1850s and 60s, and "Bleeding Kansas" became a forbidding symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery that followed.

Many free-state Kansans seemed to care little about slaves, and many proslavery Kansans owned not a single slave. But the failed promise of the Kansas-Nebraska Act-when fraud in local elections subverted the settlers' right to choose whether Kansas would be a slave or free state-fanned the flames of war.ā€¦


Book cover of Win By Two: A Kansas City Drug Dealer, a Private School Teacher, and the Game That Linked Them Together

John Willkom Author Of Walk-On Warrior: Drive, Discipline, and the Will to Win

From my list on inspiration.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a former Division 1 basketball player at Marquette University and current ecommerce executive, Iā€™m always looking for new sources of inspiration. Please enjoy my list and send me any comments on what you find inspiring!

John's book list on inspiration

John Willkom Why did John love this book?

Win By Two is the true story about a Kansas City drug dealer and a private school teacher, bonded together through basketball. This is a powerful story about race, leadership, and what can happen when people get outside of their comfort zones and build bridges in their community. It also challenges our internal biases that we may not even know exist.

By Adam Donyes, Derrick Derrell,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A drug dealer, who grew up in the urban core of Kansas City. A private school teacher who grew up in San Diego and dared to hire a convicted felon as his assistant coach. And the game that saved both their lives. A drama so powerful no storyteller would script the details that unfold. It all starts in a crack house on the west side of the Paseo, and in a broken low income home in east San Diego. It unfolds in a private school gymnasium, a state penitentiary, a chapel in downtown Kansas City, the Johnson County Suburbs, andā€¦


Book cover of May B.

Kathleen Wilford Author Of Cabby Potts, Duchess of Dirt

From my list on the American prairie.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™m a former high-school and middle-school English teacher and a current instructor in the Writing Program at Rutgers University. I live in hilly New Jersey, but Iā€™ve always been fascinated by the flat, treeless American prairie and the people who have lived there, from the Native American tribes of the Great Plains to the early homesteaders. I believe that to understand where we are, you need to understand where weā€™ve been, which is why I love to read and write historical fiction.

Kathleen's book list on the American prairie

Kathleen Wilford Why did Kathleen love this book?

This historical novel in verse brings the Kansas prairie alive in all its beauty and harshness. The story is tense with few light moments as young May B is stranded alone in a sod house as blizzards rage outside. Sheā€™s a realistic heroine, tempted to despair but ultimately finding hidden sources of strength. Oh, and she suffers from dyslexia. Sometimes I think novels in verse will be too artsy or literary, but theyā€™re actually easy to read, right? Perfect for a struggling reader, perhaps one with dyslexia.

By Caroline Starr Rose,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked May B. as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

"If May is a brave, stubborn fighter, the short, free-verse lines are one-two punches in this Laura Ingalls Wilder-inspired ode to the human spirit." ā€” Kirkus Reviews, Starred

I've known it since last night:
It's been too long to expect them to return. 
Something's happened.

May is helping out on a neighbor's Kansas prairie homesteadā€”just until Christmas, says Pa. She wants to contribute, but it's hard to be separated from her family by 15 long, unfamiliar miles. Then the unthinkable happens: May is abandoned. Trapped in a tiny snow-covered sod house, isolated from family and neighbors, May must prepare forā€¦


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Book cover of Secret St. Augustine: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure

Secret St. Augustine by Elizabeth Randall,

A look at the wild, unknown, wacky world of overlooked symbols, emblems, sites, and events in America's oldest ancient city.

Book cover of Red Menace

Jeffrey Michael Ruby Author Of Penelope March Is Melting

From my list on middle grade my bookworm daughter got me into.

Why am I passionate about this?

Iā€™ve spent pretty much my entire adult life as a journalist, a dining critic, or a humor columnist. But over the past ten years, my reading choices have been influenced less by, say, The New Yorker, than by my daughter, Hannah. As she grew from Knuffle Bunny to Junie B. Jones to Judy Moody, so did I. And when she began reading middle-grade novels, I did too. Then I began writing them. There is something amazing about the endless possibilities of a kidā€™s imagination before they get cynical and start to care about things like being cool that makes middle-grade the sweet spot for ideas. Itā€™s like Hannah came along and recalibrated my brainā€”for reading and writing alike.

Jeffrey's book list on middle grade my bookworm daughter got me into

Jeffrey Michael Ruby Why did Jeffrey love this book?

Lois Ruby is a YA veteran who has more than 20 books to her name, many of them historical fiction, including the beloved Steal Away Home, which appeared on basically every year-end best list back in 1994. She also happens to be my mom. And her latest book, which takes place during the ā€œred scareā€ of the 1950s, is among her best. Itā€™s a tense story about a baseball-crazy 13-year-old boy whose parents are accused of being communist sympathizers, turning his life upside down when heā€™s supposed to be studying for his bar mitzvah. The clock-ticking backdrop, leading up to the notorious execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for supposedly passing on nuclear secrets to the Soviets, gives the whole book terrifyingly high stakes.

By Lois Ruby,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Red Menace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

A suspenseful and heartfelt story about an era whose uncertainties, controversies, and dangers will seem anything but distant to contemporary readers.

If thirteen-year-old Marty Rafner had his way, he'd spend the summer of 1953 warming the bench for his baseball team, listening to Yankees games on the radio, and avoiding preparations for his bar mitzvah. Instead, he has to deal with FBI agents staking out his house because his parentsā€•professors at the local collegeā€•are suspected communist sympathizers. Marty knows what happens to communists, or Reds, as his friends call them: They lose their jobs, get deported...or worse. Two people he'sā€¦


Book cover of Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880
Book cover of In Search of Canaan: Black Migration to Kansas, 1879-80
Book cover of The Black Towns

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Interested in Kansas, African Americans, and the American Civil War?

Kansas 39 books
African Americans 814 books