Leading Ladies, Lasting Legacies: celebrating the stories of women

February is African Heritage month. Last year during African Heritage month, The Reader offered readers a peek at eight great popular and awarding winning black authors that we thought you should know about. This year, the theme of African Heritage Month in Nova Scotia is “Leading Ladies, Lasting Legacies”. It’s a celebration of the lives and achievements of African Nova Scotian women that draws attention to 6 particular women – Edith Cromwell, Ada Fells, Geraldine White, Beryl Braithwaite, May Sheppard, and Willena Jones – who have made great contributions to their communities.

Biographies are a wonderful way to learn about history and individuals, and they are just plain great reads. So, in the spirit of this year’s African Heritage Month theme, here are 8 biographies of black women that you should know about. It’s a mix of classics and new titles, local and international, but all of them represent interesting lives well worth knowing about.

Invisible Shadows: a Black woman’s life in Nova Scotia by Verna Thomas

Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston

Kinky Gazpacho: life, love & Spain by Lori L. Tharps

Michelle: a biography by Liza Mundy

The Hanging of Angelique: the untold story of Canadian slavery and the burning of old Montreal by Afua Cooper

In Search of Nella Larsen: a biography of the color line by George Hutchinson

Little X: growing up in the nation of Islam by Sonsyrea Tate

The Golden Road: notes on my gentrification by Caille Millner