A Selective List of Black History Books

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) chooses the themes annually for Black History Month. The 2025 theme for Black History Month is African Americans and Labor and “focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people.” 

The San Diego State University Library has compiled a list of books about African Americans in all subject areas in our collection. We invite you to check them in by visiting the University Library for a print version or accessing an eBook version online.

We also invite you to visit the Africana Studies Collection on the third floor of the University Library's Love Library.

The Africana Studies Collection (ASC) is a browsing collection for young adults and above, aligning with the curriculum areas of the university. 

This collection covers topics related to African American communities and Black communities. Materials in this collection support a curriculum built around the topic of Black and African American Studies and studies of the African Diaspora. This collection also includes broad collections supporting research and teaching on Black Studies, African American Studies, and the African Diaspora across the curriculum at SDSU. African American Studies Librarian will build the collection, taking recommendations from the library's partners, librarian selectors, and others engaged in culturally relevant research.