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The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has been one of Harlem’s great repositories of materials focused on African American, African Diasporan and African experiences. Now, as it marks its 100th anniversary, the institution is celebrating the milestone with a list of recommended books that spans the breadth of Black literary and scholarly history.
Released as part of the centennial celebrations, 100 Black Voices is a reading list that covers the last 100 years of Black writing. One hundred books, one hundred authors. Each title comes recommended by Black writers, artists and scholars who know the weight and power of Black literature firsthand. The list was curated by the Schomburg Center’s Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, grounding the project in deep archival expertise as well as personal passion.
The range is wide, with works rooted in the Harlem Renaissance, books that shaped classrooms and living rooms and contemporary titles that are still generating buzz. You’ll find classics like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Sula, alongside modern staples such as Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Together, the selections trace how Black writers have documented joy, rage, intimacy, politics and survival across generations.
The contributors behind the recommendations include cultural heavyweights like Jelani Cobb, Glenn Ligon, Imani Perry, Alison Stewart, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and James McBride. The result is a list of Black books read, loved, argued over and passed along over generations.
To mark the release, the New York Public Library has made a curated selection of 100 Black Voices titles available as instant e-books and audiobooks, with no wait times, through February 28. NYPL cardholders can borrow them for three weeks via the library’s website or the Libby app.
The Schomburg Center began in 1925 as the Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints at NYPL’s 135th Street branch. Today, its collection numbers more than 11 million items, and 100 Black Voices stands as an entry into the wealth of knowledge contained within and shared by the Center. Find the full list of 100 titles here, and the titles available for instant access here.