Black AF History The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

This New York Times Bestseller and Amazon Best Book of 2023 is exactly what your history shelf has been missing. Michael Harriot, acclaimed columnist and political commentator, serves up a searingly smart, bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that finally centers Black voices and experiences.

Let’s be honest: the version of American history most of us learned is a whitewashed mythology. Pilgrims and cherry trees, log cabins and sanitized tales of “progress.” Black AF History rips away that sugarcoating and replaces it with meticulous research, primary sources, and the groundbreaking work of Black historians who’ve been telling these truths all along.

Harriot’s approach is unapologetically provocative yet deeply grounded in scholarship. You’ll discover African Americans who arrived before 1619, meet the “unenslavable” bandit who inspired America’s first police force, and encounter countless other stories that were conveniently left out of the textbooks. This isn’t just corrective history—it’s essential reading that speaks hilarious truth to oppressive power.

Honored by the NAACP Image Awards and celebrated by The Root, Chicago Public Library, and Barnes & Noble as one of the best books of 2023, this volume combines incisive wit with urgent necessity. Whether you’re a history buff ready to unlearn what you thought you knew or simply seeking a more honest American story, Black AF History delivers. Because American history has been white history for far too long. This history? This history is Black AF.

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