Black Nature Authors to Add to Your Bookshelf

Jun 4, 2020

Black Nature Authors to Add to Your Bookshelf

Jun 4, 2020

Looking for some new authors to add to your collection of inspirational nature writings? Search no more, we've started a list of authors you can read and contribute to right now to add some important new perspectives about how Black authors see the natural world, starting with those who live in California:

Camille T. Dungy: Black Nature: Four Centuries of African-American Nature Poetry
Carolyn Finley: Black Faces, White Spaces: African Americans and the Great Outdoors
Cecil Griscombe: Prairie Style
Al Young: Something About the Blues
Harryette Mullen: Urban Tumbleweed

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Additional reading from Black authors outside of California:
John C. Robinson:  Birding for Everyone: Encouraging People of Color to Become Birdwatchers
Dianne D. Glave:  To Love the Wind and the Rain: African-Americans and Environmental History
Norris McDonald:  Diary of an Environmentalist
Mary Williams:  The Lost Daughter, A Memoir
Eddy L. Harris:  Mississippi Solo, A River Quest
Lauret Savoy: Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape
John Francis:  Planet Walker
J. Drew Latham:  The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature

Additional books about environmental justice written by Black authors:
Dorceta Taylor: The Rise of the American Conservation Movement
James Edwards Mills: The Adventure Gap: Changing the Force of the Outdoors
Dianne D. Glave: Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage
Dorceta Taylor: Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility

And for all the science fiction lovers out there, a couple of Black environmental writers who are amazingly prescient:
Octavia Butler: The Parable series
N. K. Jemison:  the Broken Earth trilogy

Have any additions to our list to share? Let us know in the comments!

Special thanks to Jody Woodbury and Xi Marquez for the recommendations.


By Sarah Angulo
Author - Community Education Specialist 2 (Central & Sierra)