8 Must-Listen Memoirs by Black Authors
When was the last time you heard a story that you couldn’t forget? If it’s been a minute, we’re here to fix that. Listening to memoirs on audio can be an intimate experience. The voice of the author or narrator in your ear, heard through a medium that you can take anywhere—a story equally present when you close your eyes, go on a long walk, or move through chores around the house.
During Black History Month, there can be a double joy in the stories we chose to listen to, and the authors and narrators who bring those stories to life. Listen to clips from the memoirs we’ve selected below, and find your next unforgettable story.
Firstborn Girls by Bernice L. McFadden
On her second birthday in 1967, Bernice McFadden died in a car crash near Detroit, only to be resuscitated after her mother pulled her from the flaming wreckage. Firstborn Girls traces her remarkable life from that moment up to the publication of her first novel, Sugar. A memoir of many threads, Firstborn Girls is an moving portrait of a life shaped by family, history, and the love between mothers and daughters.
The Water Bearers by Sasha Bonét
One of NPR’s “Nonfiction Books We Love from 2025” and one of Kirkus’s “Best Nonfiction Books of 2025,” The Waterbearers is a dazzling and transformative work of American storytelling that explores the complexity of Black womanhood through three generations of Bonét’s family. Read by the author.
Talk to Me by Rich Benjamin
A piercingly powerful memoir from cultural anthropologist Rich Benjamin, Talk to Me is both a remarkable family history and a bold portrait of America—and the human cost of this country’s hostilities abroad and at home.
Nonviolent by Reverend James Lawson Jr. and Emily Yellin
Read by a full cast of narrators, Nonviolent is the posthumous memoir of Rev. James Lawson Jr., peer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mentor to Congressman John Lewis and the Freedom Riders, and a principal architect of a nonviolent resistance movement that changed the world.
Full of Myself by Austin Channing Brown
In a time of rising authoritarianism and attacks on personal freedoms, Austin Channing Brown (New York Times bestselling author of I’m Still Here) chronicles her efforts to live as her full self in a society that wants women—and Black women in particular—to do anything but that.
Too Precious To Lose by Jason G. Green
A moving and inspiring memoir from a former Obama White House staffer, Jason G. Green’s Too Precious To Lose is both a family history and the tale of the merger of three churches—one Black, two white—and how a radical embrace of community became a salvation.
We All Want to Change the World by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
For many, it can feel like change takes too long, and it might seem that we have not moved very far. But political activist and NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar believes that public protest is a vital part of affecting change, even if that change doesn’t come “right now.” In We All Want to Change the World, he takes a sweeping look back at the protest movements that changed America, with personal and historical insights into lessons they can teach us today.
The Real Ones by Maya Rupert
One of political strategist Maya Rupert’s earliest memories was learning how to be inauthentic. That performance—the ability to make white people feel comfortable about race—has brought her everything from safety to success. In The Real Ones, Rupert reveals how, for people of color, being real comes at a cost and authenticity is a privilege the marginalized cannot afford—that is, unless we change the system.
