Award Winning Books About Race and Civil Rights

This is the subject where the fiction and the history need each other most. A Pulitzer winning account of the King years and a novel about a plantation are describing the same country from different distances, and reading either one alone leaves the picture incomplete. Both are here, by year.

158 books drawn from 17 prize lists, newest first.

• 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black
• 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  James by Percival Everett
• 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
• 2025 Nebula Award for Best Novel
  The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• 2024 Caldecott Medal
  Big by Vashti Harrison
• 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
• 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo
• 2024 Pulitzer Prize for History
  No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones
• 2023 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie
• 2023 Newbery Medal
  Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson
• 2023 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  His Name Is George Floyd by Robert Samuels & Toluse Olorunnipa
• 2023 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
  The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
• 2023 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
• 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel
  Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang
• 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert and Erin I. Kelly
• 2022 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America by Nicole Eustace
• 2022 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott
• 2022 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  South to America by Imani Perry
• 2021 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  All That She Carried by Tiya Miles
• 2021 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain
• 2021 National Book Award for Fiction
  Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
• 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
• 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne
• 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
• 2021 The Booker Prize
  The Promise by Damon Galgut
• 2021 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino
• 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
  Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
• 2020 Newbery Medal
  New Kid by Jerry Craft
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel
• 2020 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Dead Are Arising by Les & Tamara Payne
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
• 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  The Tradition by Jericho Brown
• 2020 Caldecott Medal
  The Undefeated by Kadir Nelson
• 2020 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction
  An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• 2019 Edgar Award for Best Novel
  Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley
• 2019 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
• 2019 The Booker Prize
  Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
• 2019 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
• 2018 Edgar Award for Best Novel
  Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
• 2018 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Locking Up Our Own by James Forman Jr.
• 2018 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The New Negro by Jeffrey C. Stewart
• 2017 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson
• 2017 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Evicted by Matthew Desmond
• 2017 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Olio by Tyehimba Jess
• 2017 Caldecott Medal
  Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by Javaka Steptoe
• 2017 National Book Award for Fiction
  Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• 2016 Newbery Medal
  Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña
• 2016 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
• 2016 The Booker Prize
  The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• 2015 The Booker Prize
  A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
• 2015 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Digest by Gregory Pardlo
• 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 by Alan Taylor
• 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King
• 2013 National Book Award for Fiction
  The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
• 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
• 2012 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  NW by Zadie Smith
• 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner
• 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
• 2009 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
• 2009 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
• 2008 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
• 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey
• 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate
• 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff
• 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Imperial Reckoning by Caroline Elkins
• 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  March by Geraldine Brooks
• 2006 Women's Prize for Fiction
  On Beauty by Zadie Smith
• 2004 Pulitzer Prize for History
  A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration by Steven Hahn
• 2004 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle
• 2004 Women's Prize for Fiction
  Small Island by Andrea Levy
• 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Known World by Edward P. Jones
• 2004 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
• 2003 The Booker Prize
  Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
• 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro
• 2003 Women's Prize for Fiction
  Property by Valerie Martin
• 2002 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Carry Me Home by Diane McWhorter
• 2001 Edgar Award for Best Novel
  The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale
• 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963 by David Levering Lewis
• 2000 Newbery Medal
  Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
• 1999 Nebula Award for Best Novel
  Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
• 1998 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
• 1997 The Booker Prize
  The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life by Joan D. Hedrick
• 1995 Caldecott Medal
  Smoky Night by David Diaz
• 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa
• 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919 by David Levering Lewis
• 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  Beloved by Toni Morrison
• 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Omeros by Derek Walcott
• 1992 The Booker Prize
  Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
• 1991 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  Freedom (Vol. 1) by Orlando Patterson
• 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature
  July's People by Nadine Gordimer
• 1991 Newbery Medal
  Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
• 1990 National Book Award for Fiction
  Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
• 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
• 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch
• 1988 National Book Award for Fiction
  Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
• 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow
• 1987 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
• 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove
• 1986 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas
• 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature
  Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka
• 1986 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Move Your Shadow by Joseph Lelyveld
• 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 by Louis R. Harlan
• 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• 1982 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward
• 1982 The Booker Prize
  Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
• 1980 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery by Leon F. Litwack
• 1979 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
• 1979 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics by Don E. Fehrenbacher
• 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
• 1977 Newbery Medal
  Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
• 1977 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 by David M. Potter
• 1976 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution by David Brion Davis
• 1974 The Booker Prize
  The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
• 1974 Newbery Medal
  The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
• 1973 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  Children of Crisis, Volumes II and III by Robert Coles
• 1973 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Sula by Toni Morrison
• 1972 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States by Carl N. Degler
• 1970 Newbery Medal
  Sounder by William H. Armstrong
• 1970 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• 1969 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
  White Over Black by Winthrop D. Jordan
• 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
• 1967 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction
  The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture by David Brion Davis
• 1966 Newbery Medal
  I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Treviño
• 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
• 1963 Caldecott Medal
  The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
• 1963 Pulitzer Prize for History
  Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878 by Constance McLaughlin Green
• 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War by David Donald
• 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• 1958 Edgar Award for Best Novel
  Room to Swing by Ed Lacy
• 1953 National Book Award for Fiction
  Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  John C. Calhoun: American Portrait by Margaret Louise Coit
• 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
  Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks
• 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
• 1946 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Street by Ann Petry
• 1942 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe by Forrest Wilson
• 1942 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
• 1940 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Native Son by Richard Wright
• 1940 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
• 1938 Pulitzer Prize for History
  The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 by Paul Herman Buck
• 1937 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• 1936 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
• 1933 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
  The Store by T. S. Stribling
• 1923 Best Books That Never Won a Prize
  Cane by Jean Toomer
• 1918 Pulitzer Prize for History
  A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 by James Ford Rhodes
• 1917 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
  Julia Ward Howe by Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott
• 1884 Classic Books
  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• 1861 Classic Books
  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
• 1853 Classic Books
  Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
• 1852 Classic Books
  Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• 1845 Classic Books
  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass