KRLemmons African American adult fiction, African American adult literature, African American Authors

365 Black Books Diane McKinney-Whetstone Friday

Happy birthday Diane McKinney-Whetstone! Born August 14, Diane McKinney-Whetstone is an African American author of eight novels. Her latest novel, Family spirit was published August, 2025. She mines the city of Philadelphia for her material. The blocks and neighborhoods themselves become characters as she tells stories of everyday people existing in families and communities; characters faltering, yielding to their desires, falling, fighting, climbing, reaching for their better selves. Twice awarded the American Library Association Black Caucus Literary Award for Fiction, she is also a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.

KRLemmons African American Authors, African American children's literature, African American Graphic Novels, African American History, African American Nonfiction

365 Black Books Ibram X. Kendi Thursday

Happy birthday Ibram X. Kendi! Born August 13, Ibram Xolani Kendi is an African American author, professor, anti-racism activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in the U.S. He is author of books including Stamped from the Beginning, How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby, and Chain of Ideas.

KRLemmons African American Authors, African American children's literature, African American Middle Grades Literature, African American Picture Books, African American Young Adult Literature

365 Black Books Walter Dean Myers

Heavenly birthday wishes Walter Dean Myers! Born August 12, 1937, Walter Dean Myers was an award-winning African American writer best known for young adult literature. He has written about 70 novels, including the award winning novel, Monster. Some of his young adult literature feature African American young adult males. Walter Dean Myers died in 2014.

KRLemmons African American Authors, African American autobiography, African American Young Adult Literature

365 Black Books Janet McDonald Monday

Heavenly birthday wishes Janet McDonald! Born August 10, 1953, Janet McDonald was an African American author of young adult novels as well as the author of Project Girl, a memoir about her early life in Brooklyn’s Farragut Houses and struggle to achieve an Ivy League education. She died in 2007. I read Project Girl many years ago. It is a very real, very engaging, and very well written story!

KRLemmons African American Authors, African American children's literature, African American Middle Grades Literature, African American Picture Books, African American Young Adult Literature

365 Black Books Derrick Barnes Sunday

Happy birthday Derrick Barnes! Born August 9, Derrick Barnes is an award-winning African American children’s and young adult’s author. Derrick Barnes is a National Book Award Finalist for his 2022 graphic novel Victory. Stand!-Raising My Fist For Justice, which also won the 2023 YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award, and a Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning picture book Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut which received a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers.

In 2020, he became the only author to win the Kirkus Prize twice for his twelfth release, the New York Times bestseller, I Am Every Good Thing. The title also won a Charlotte Huck Award (NCTE), and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor. Visit his website for more of his notable books.

KRLemmons African American Authors, African American Nonfiction, African American Preachers, African American religious studies

365 Black Books James H. Cone Saturday

Heavenly belated birthday wishes James H. Cone! Born August 6, 1938, James Hal Cone was an African American Methodist minister and theologian. He is best known for his advocacy of black theology and black liberation theology. His 1969 book Black Theology and Black Power provided a new way to comprehensively define the distinctiveness of theology in the black church. He died in 2018. He authored these works:

KRLemmons African American Authors, African American Poetry, African American Poets

365 Black Books Robert Hayden Friday

Heavenly belated birthday wishes Robert Hayden! Born August 4, 1913 in Detroit, Robert Hayden was an African American poet, essayist, and educator. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as U.S. Poet Laureate. He was the first African-American writer to hold the office. He died in 1980. He authored a few works. The collected poems was published posthumously.

Read some of Robert Hayden’s poems here and here.