NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction
Nonfiction literary award from the NAACP
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This article lists the winners and nominees for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction. Maya Angelou, Michael Eric Dyson, and Barack Obama hold the record for most wins in this category, with two each.
Winners and nominees
1990s
| Year | Book | Author | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of 'Malcolm X' | Spike Lee and Ralph Wiley | Winner | [1] |
| 1996 | ||||
| When We Were Colored | Clifton Taulbert | Winner | [2] | |
| 1999 | ||||
| With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together | Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee | Winner | [3] |
2000s
| Year | Book | Author | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Sally Hemings, An American Scandal | Tina Andrews | Winner | [4][better source needed] |
| 2003 | Keeping the Faith | Tavis Smiley | Winner | |
| A Song Flung Up to Heaven | Maya Angelou | Finalist | ||
| Bill Clinton and Black America | DeWayne Wickham | |||
| Growing Up X | Ilyasah Shabazz | |||
| Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters | Carla Kaplan | |||
| 2004 | Why I Love Black Women | Michael Eric Dyson | Winner | [5][better source needed] |
| 2005 | Hallelujah! The Welcome Table | Maya Angelou | Winner | [6][better source needed] |
| 2006 | Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? | Michael Eric Dyson | Winner | |
| Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir | Stanley Williams | Finalist | ||
| The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero's Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters and Speeches | Manning Marable and Myrlie Evers-Williams | |||
| 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality in America | Anthony Asadullah Samad | |||
| Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America | John McWhorter | |||
| 2007 | The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream | Barack Obama | Winner | [7] |
| Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster | Michael Eric Dyson | Finalist | [7][8] | |
| The Covenant with Black America | Stanley Williams | |||
| Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete | William C. Rhoden | |||
| Not in My Family: AIDS in the African American Community | Gil L. Robertson | |||
| 2008 | Not on Our Watch | Don Cheadle and John Prendergast | Winner | [9] |
| An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President | Randall Robinson | Finalist | [10] | |
| Brother, I'm Dying | Edwidge Danticat | |||
| Know What I Mean?: Reflections on Hip-Hop | Michael Eric Dyson | |||
| Race and Racism in the Chinas: Chinese Racial Attitudes Toward Africans and African-Americans | M. Dujon Johnson | |||
| 2009 | Letter to My Daughter | Maya Angelou | Winner | [11][12] |
2010s
| Year | Book | Author | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | In Search of Our Roots | Henry Louis Gates Jr. | Winner | [14] |
| Freedom in My Heart: Voices From the United States National Slavery Museum | Cynthia Carter | Finalist | [15] | |
| Our Choice | Al Gore | |||
| Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters With Mortality and Miracles | Arnold Mann and Keith Black | |||
| Family Affair: What It Means to Be African American Today | Gil L. Robertson | |||
| 2011 | The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness | Michelle Alexander | Winner | [16] |
| Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority | Tom Burrell | Finalist | ||
| Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts of Women in SNCC | Faith S. Holsaert | |||
| Surviving and Thriving 365 Days in Black Economic History | Julianne Malveaux | |||
| The History of White People | Nell Irvin Painter | |||
| 2012 | The Wealth Cure: Putting Money in Its Place | Hill Harper | Winner | [17] |
| Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America | Melissa Harris-Perry | Finalist | [17] | |
| Super Rich | Russell Simmons | |||
| The Cosmopolitan Canopy | Elijah Anderson | |||
| Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now | Touré | |||
| 2013 | The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court | Jeffrey Toobin | Winner | [18] |
| Fraternity | Diane Brady | Finalist | [18][19] | |
| Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation | Deborah Davis | |||
| Power Concedes Nothing: One Woman's Quest for Social Justice in America, from the Courtroom to the Kill Zones | Connie Rice | |||
| The Courage to Hope | Shirley Sherrod | |||
| 2014 | Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery | Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer | Winner | [20] |
| Bartlett's Familiar Black Quotations: 5,000 Years of Literature, Lyrics, Poems, Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs from Voices Around the World | Retha Powers | Finalist | [20] | |
| High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society | Carl Hart | |||
| Letters to an Incarcerated Brother: Encouragement, Hope, and Healing for Inmates and Their Loved Ones | Hill Harper | |||
| The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross | Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Donald Yacovone | |||
| 2015 | Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption | Bryan Stevenson | Winner | [21] |
| Bad Feminist | Roxane Gay | Finalist | [21] | |
| Place Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America | Sheryll Cashin | |||
| Who We Be: The Colorization of America | Jeff Chang | |||
| 2016 | Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga | Pamela Newkirk | Winner | [22] |
| 50 Billion Dollar Boss: African American Women Sharing Stories of Success in Entrepreneurship and Leadership | Kathey Porter and Andrea Hoffman | Finalist | [22] | |
| Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America | Jill Leovy | |||
| Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America | Wil Haygood | |||
| The Light of the World | Elizabeth Alexander | |||
| 2017 | Hidden Figures | Margot Lee Shetterly | Winner | [23] |
| Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul | Eddie S. Glaude | Finalist | [23] | |
| Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America | Ibram X. Kendi | |||
| Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld | |||
| 2018 | Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies | Dick Gregory (posthumous) | Winner | [24] |
| Black Detroit – A People’s History of Self-Determination | Herb Boyd | Finalist | [24] | |
| Chokehold: Policing Black Men | Paul Butler | |||
| The President's Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas | Adrian Miller | |||
| We Were Eight Years In Power: An American Tragedy | Ta-Nehisi Coates | |||
| 2019 | For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics | Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah D. Daughtry, Minyon Moore, Veronica Chambers | Winner | [25] |
| Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" | Zora Neale Hurston | Finalist | [25] | |
| Black Girls Rock! Owning Our Magic. Rocking Our Truth | Beverly Bond | |||
| May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem | Imani Perry | |||
| The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row | Anthony Ray Hinton and Lara Love Hardin |
2020s
| Year | Book | Author | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations | Toni Morrison | Winner | [26] |
| Breathe: A Letter to My Sons | Imani Perry | Finalist | [26] | |
| STONY THE ROAD: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow | Henry Louis Gates Jr. | |||
| The Yellow House | Sarah M. Broom | |||
| What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essay | Damon Young | |||
| 2021 | A Promised Land | Barack Obama | Winner | [27] |
| A Black Women's History of the United States | Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross | Finalist | [28] | |
| Driving While Black | Gretchen Sorin | |||
| Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America | Michael Eric Dyson | |||
| We're Better Than This | Elijah Cummings | |||
| 2022 | The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story | Nikole Hannah-Jones | Winner | [29][30] |
| Dance Theatre of Harlem | Judy Tyrus and Paul Novosel | Finalist | [30] | |
| Just As I Am | Cicely Tyson | |||
| My Remarkable Journey | Katherine Johnson | |||
| Renegades: Born in the USA | Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen | |||
| 2023 | Finding Me | Viola Davis | Winner | [31] |
| Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America | Cody Keenan | Finalist | [32] | |
| Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation | Linda Villarosa | |||
| Who’s Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race | Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Andrew S. Curran | |||
| Requiem for the Massacre: A Black History on the Conflict, Hope, and Fallout of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre | RJ Young | |||
| 2024 | The New Brownies’ Book | Karida L. Brown and Charly Palmer | Winner | [33] |
| Black AF History: The Un–Whitewashed Story of America | Michael Harriot | Finalist | [34] | |
| BLK ART: The Audacious Legacy of Black Artists and Models in Western Art | Zaria Ware | |||
| Iconic Home: Interiors, Advice, and Stories from 50 Amazing Black Designers | Black Interior Designers and June Reese | |||
| The Art of Ruth E. Carter | Ruth E. Carter | |||
| 2025 | Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green, and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest | Fawn Weaver | Winner | [35] |
| Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune | Noliwe Rooks | Finalist | [36] | |
| Picturing Black History: Photographs and Stories that Changed the World | Daniela Edmeier, Damarius Johnson, Nicholas B. Breyfogle and Steven Conn | |||
| The 1619 Project: A Visual Experience | Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine | |||
| The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America | Larry Tye | |||
| 2026 | A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm & Diahann Carroll Reshaped Politics | Juanita Tolliver | Winner | [37] |
| Born in Flames | Bench Ansfield | Finalist | [38] | |
| From These Roots | Tamara Lanier | |||
| Hidden Hospitality: Untold Stories of Black Hotel, Motel, and Resort Owners from the Pioneer Days to the Civil Rights Era | Calvin Stovall Jr. | |||
| I Am Nobody’s Slave | Lee Hawkins |
Multiple wins and nominations
Wins
- 2 wins
Nominations
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