10 Books to Read for Juneteenth: A Journey Through Identity, Healing and History
Juneteenth is a time to reflect on the past to help guide the future. I look back at times, people, places and words. I use my history and collective history to understand, feel and heal. For me, these books have helped guide me when I did not have any direct community for answers. I have been on somewhat of a modified "hero's journey" in my life and many foundations that most start with, I was not able to have or access. I have found in the past some days that was a curse and some days a blessing.
A blessing to create my own identity and an opportunity to seek real truths out yet a curse to feel adrift or floating high above, out of reach. These books have helped me connect to the past. A collective history of what it means to be a descendant from African ancestors in our country. What it means to be a particular type of American.
Words hold power and choosing words for power is important. Whatever your history as an American or human, these books hold a collective perspective on Americans with African diaspora lineage. Direct stories, statistical facts, psychological impacts, ways to heal, ways to support and ways to move forward stronger. These books are good reads for all, but are first and foremost for those of the diaspora seeking resource and reason.
Most of my life I had to find my own answers. For this, you now see the growing of my delusions into Rheality here. Sometimes simple sayings work best. What does not kill you makes you stronger.
Below are 10 books that are in my personal library I have found essential. Each has offered me insight, healing and a sense of empowerment on my journey through identity and history.
#10. "White Fragility" by Robin DiAngelo
“The most effective adaptation of racism over time is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people.”
This book helped me understand and articulate white defensiveness when discussing race. It gave me language for experiences I’d had and reminded me that we don’t have to carry the burden of education alone. White readers especially should sit with its information.
#9. "Killing Rage: Ending Racism" by bell hooks
“To be oppressed means to be deprived of your ability to choose.”
For me, hooks can sometimes feel a bit too academic or idealistic, but I still believe her voice and thoughts offer a lot to sit with. Killing Rage explores how justified rage can be a catalyst for change. Her essays helped me confront internalized pain, see the power in my emotions and imagine what healing justice might look like. It’s personal, powerful and rooted in love and truth.
#8. "Narrative of Sojourner Truth"
“I feel safe in the midst of my enemies, for the truth is all powerful and will prevail.”
Reading Sojourner Truth’s words felt like listening to an ancestor reminding me to keep going. Black women are the bedrock of so much culturally. Her story is a lesson in resilience, faith and the power of speaking truth to power. She showed me how testimony itself can be transformative. Speaking your truth will set you free and help health others.
#7. "Fighting for Us" by Scot Brown
“US was not merely a cultural organization, it was a cultural nationalist organization with a political vision.”
This book taught me about Maulana Karenga and the US Organization, who built cultural pride and Black identity during the Black Power movement. It was empowering to learn how people actively shaped liberation with community and culture at the center. As someone who lives very close to many historical Black Panther landmarks, this history hit especially close to home. It reminded me that movements are built by real people in real neighborhoods; people who chose to imagine something better and then made it real.
6. "The Color of Law" by Richard Rothstein
“Residential segregation was created by racially explicit government policy that openly subsidized white families to leave urban areas for the suburbs.”
Rothstein outlines how U.S. housing segregation was not accidental, but policy-driven. This book made clear the systemic roots of racial inequity and gave me the historical evidence behind injustices that still shape our cities and lives today.I was even more floored to learn how the area I live in in Oakland/Berkeley/ Northern Ca was the blue-print/testing grounds for these ideals. Everything is by design.
#5. "So You Want to Talk About Race" by Ijeoma Oluo
“When we identify where our privilege intersects with somebody else’s oppression, we’ll find our opportunities to make real change.”
Oluo breaks down tough conversations about race with clarity and care. Her book gave me strategies and validation for speaking truth and encouraged me to lean into discomfort as part of the healing and accountability process. I bought 10 copies of this book back in 2020 and handed them out to folks who needed it both my melanated folks and my unmelanated ones. It’s that kind of book: direct, generous and necessary.
#4. "The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health" by Rheeda Walker
“It’s hard to be mentally well in a society that is fundamentally not well.”
This book was a reminder that our mental health matters. Walker writes with compassion and urgency, offering tools and insights I didn’t know I needed. Her voice encouraged me to care for myself without apology. This is also a book I have bought multiple times to gift. We do not talk about mental health in our community enough and this book is a great start.
#3. "Bind Us Apart" by Nicholas Guyatt
“The founders didn’t know how to create a multiracial society, and so they didn’t.”
Guyatt exposes how early American leaders promoted racial separation even while professing equality. It’s a sobering, necessary look at the ideological roots of segregation and how deeply embedded racism has been in American policy and thought. Some things never change; without breaking the chains.
#2. "The Souls of Black Folk" by W. E. B. Du Bois
“One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings.”
Du Bois’s essays spoke directly to the complexity of Black identity and struggle. His concept of double-consciousness helped me name a feeling I’d always carried. This work is foundational and deeply personal. It is a book you take a moment to digest but is worth the read.
1. "On Juneteenth" by Annette Gordon-Reed
“To understand what Juneteenth is, one has to understand what it is not.”
Gordon-Reed blends personal memory and history in a way that felt both intimate and educational. Her reflections on Texas and Juneteenth resonated deeply with my own inner conflicts about home, pride and the truth of our past.
Juneteenth, at its heart, is about freedom and remembrance. It’s a reminder that understanding the past is not just a history lesson, but a source of identity, strength and healing. The stories, truths and histories held in these books have been lanterns for me on dark paths leading me above ground. They taught me that knowledge can be healing, that pain can be a catalyst for growth and that none of us in this diaspora is truly alone when we know the lineage of resilience we come from.
I hope you feel the same hope I do: that by engaging with these stories, we become stronger collectively. The African diaspora narrative is immense. It carries many emotions; suffering and joy, rage and love, despair and triumph. When we honor it, we honor ourselves and each other. I firmly believe that truth-telling and story-sharing are acts of liberation. So, whether you are a descendant of African ancestors like me or an ally, or simply a curious about lesser told American history, I invite you to read these works, reflect on them and let them remind you that history, in all its complexity, holds the keys to our unity and our future. We must understand history so only the good repeats itself.
Happy Juneteenth,
Rheal