Books about Integration, Schools & HBCUs by various authors

c.2025,

Various publishers

$28 – $34

Various page counts

The anticipation is high.

Your soon-to-be-graduate has been checking every day to see if there’s good news or bad news from the college of their choice, and to determine if they need a change of plans. It’s an unnerving time, but also one of hope. So why not be prepared, and read these great books about education in the Black community…

More than 70 years ago, something happened in rural Tennessee that was almost lost to history: three people – one of them, a white man – joined forces to help Black southerners get past Jim Crow laws and vote. As you’ll read in “Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement” by Elaine Weiss (One Signal, $29.99), they accomplished this feat by opening Citizenship Schools which, by 1965, had grown from one little room in the back of a grocery store, to over nine hundred such schools. How this happened, and what these schools accomplished, is a story you can’t miss.

Here’s another book that presents another side of history: “Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children” by Noliwe Rooks (Pantheon, $28) challenges the narrative that says Brown v. Board of Education fixed what was wrong with separate-but-equal laws for schools. Author Rooks says, in fact, that there’s so much more to this story, and that understanding what integration actually did for Black students is to understand how it can be so much better. Bonus: Rooks includes personal stories here, which are as entertaining as they are informative for readers concerned about their children’s education.

If your student is heading for an HBCU in the fall, be sure to check out “With Faith in God and Heart and Mind: A History of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity” by Maurice J. Hobson, Eddie R. Cole, Jim C. Harper II, and Derrick P. Alridge (University of North Carolina Press, $29.95). Started in the fall of 1911 by four students at Howard University, Omega Psi Phi was a place for students to join, to bond, and to get support. But it was also a place for greatness: many of its members went on to serve in the military in high places, to serve in society, medicine, science, and politics. In this book, you’ll read a history of the fraternity, and you’ll learn about its prominent alumni.

And finally, if your student isn’t sure if college is in their future, look at “Who Needs College Anymore?” by Kathleen Delaski (Harvard Education Press, $34). There are other ways to get an education, says the author, and it may still involve a formal education or new twists on old methods of finding a career. Some of them may be controversial. Others may be just the key for a new grad with an aversion to school.

And if these books on education aren’t enough for your or your student, be sure to ask your librarian or bookseller for more suggestions. There are many more books on the history of education for you to read, addressing elementary schools, college-level, and high school