Celebrate and honor Juneteenth with these important listens

Historian Dr. Rebecca Hall originally published Wake as a graphic novel and memoir, chronicling her journey to uncover the hidden and untold stories of women-led slave revolts. For this Audible exclusive, the book has been adapted into an audio dramatization by playwright and television writer Tyler English-Beckwith. It's performed by a full cast, including DeWanda Wise, Chanté Adams, and Bahni Turpin among the notable voices, and features music and sound effects by Jace Clayton. A unique and immersive listening experience, Wake skillfully transitions between Dr. Hall’s story of discovery and vivid historical vignettes of the women warriors she celebrates.

Understanding the ongoing legacy of slavery in the United States requires confronting not just the history itself, but the ways in which history is told, preserved, and deliberately hidden. Clint Smith takes listeners on a revealing journey across America, visiting important landmarks and monuments, including cemeteries, statues, and plantations. He looks closely at the stories these places do and do not tell, illuminating how the past continues to weigh on the present. His narration, like his prose, is sharp, passionate, and intimate.

Malcolm X was one of the most prominent and powerful figures of the civil rights movement. A Muslim minister, he was extremely vocal in advocating for equality and opportunity for Black people in America. The autobiography chronicles the life of Malcolm X, as told to journalist Alex Haley by the civil rights leader and activist himself, over the course of a number of interviews from 1963 until his assassination in 1965. This particular edition, available exclusively on Audible, is performed with a powerful and dignified presence by actor Laurence Fishburne.

This groundbreaking audiobook is based on the award-winning journalism project originally published in The New York Times Magazine. It reframes the story of the first slave ship that arrived in the United States in 1619 as not only America's original sin but the insidious engine that still drives every aspect of American society. Through powerful essays, poems, and works of fiction, contributors explore the legacy of slavery that pervades everything from art and religion to democracy and citizenship. A full cast emphasizes the collaborative nature of the project, giving listeners a sense of its extraordinary scope.

Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth begins with the shooting of Adam Sunraider—a senator known for race-baiting—in an assassination attempt during a speech at the US Capitol. While clinging to life in the hospital, Sunraider allows only one visitor: Reverend Alonzo Hickman who, as it turns out, raised Sunraider, an orphan then known as Bliss, like a son. How did Bliss, the chosen child of a Black preacher, grow up to become a politician spouting racist views? Through the two men’s conversations, various truths of their complex, intertwined pasts are slowly revealed. In audio, narrator Joe Morton provides a beautifully rich performance of this stunning novel.

The racial history of Texas, the birthplace of Juneteenth, is explored in this Pulitzer Prize–winning title. A Texas native and descendant of enslaved people, historian Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on her personal experiences growing up in the state to highlight society’s continued fallibility in regards to race. Both sweeping and concise, On Juneteenth is an accessible yet profound listen, narrated by Karen Chilton.

Much of mainstream American history is what would more accurately be called American myth—stories of a revolutionary new nation built on heroism and democracy, a feel-good origin story that masks the reality of what really happened. In this electrifying listen, Michael Harriot rewrites the record, firmly placing Black American history where it belongs: at the center. His storytelling is compelling and provocative, sometimes funny and always firmly grounded in meticulous research and primary sources. He narrates the audiobook himself, and his deep knowledge, obvious passion, and sharp wit elevate his performance.

Between 1915 and 1970, more than six million African Americans moved from the South into northern and western cities across the USA. In The Warmth of Other Suns, acclaimed journalist Isabel Wilkerson provides a definitive, in-depth account of the Great Migration. Wilkerson interviewed more than a thousand people and accessed countless official records for her landmark work, which follows three individuals in particular to tell the story of this mass exodus and its role in changing and shaping this country. Though this audiobook closes in at nearly 23 hours, listeners will remain mesmerized, thanks to the talented voice of Hall of Fame narrator Robin Miles.

This short novel, written sometime in the 1850s, was written by an enslaved Black woman and later brought to light and edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., who also shares his thoughts in an exclusive interview housed in this audio edition. This listen is both a fascinating fictional tale and an important historical document. The story follows a young enslaved woman as she makes her way toward freedom, all the while becoming more entangled with the mistress of the house, who has secrets of her own. Actor Anna Deavere Smith imbues her performance with spirit, capturing the social, political, cultural, and interpersonal tensions threaded throughout the work.

Originally published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk is an essay collection from sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois that has become a seminal work on both race and sociology. It is here wherein Du Bois coined the term “double consciousness” as well as his metaphor of the veil that Black Americans wear, both ideas that illustrate how the racist, white-centering society of the United States has forced Black people to view both themselves and the world with a unique hyperawareness. Walter Covell narrates this edition, bringing life and spirit to Du Bois’s wise and still relevant words.

Four Hundred Souls, to quote its subtitle, is an epic “community history of African America.” Editors Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain gathered 90 different writers, each of whom wrote on a specific five-year period within the timespan of 1619 to 2019. What results is an incredibly diverse and kaleidoscopic look at these 400 years, with each voice approaching their piece of history in a unique and personal way. Reflecting the varied nature of the writing, the audiobook is performed by a huge cast, including talents as renowned as Phylicia Rashad and Samira Wiley.

In this comprehensive culinary history, scholar and cookbook author Jessica B. Harris traces the fraught connections between American and African cuisine. She frames this complicated history with the actual journeys that brought food from Africa across the Atlantic to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. She traces the ways that enslaved African people carried food with them, and how those foodways and traditions have become deeply embedded in American food culture.

Narrated by the excellent J.D. Jackson, Be Free or Die by Cate Lineberry tells the incredible true story of Robert Smalls, an enslaved man who escaped to freedom with his wife, children, and a small crew by commandeering a Confederate ship and turning it over to Union forces. Smalls later served in a number of naval campaigns as a civilian ship captain, and his actions eventually led to the acceptance of Black soldiers in the Union Army, where he served as the first ever Black captain of an Army ship.

In 1864, Ebenezer Creek, located in Georgia, was the site of a horrific incident: the drowning of many newly freed enslaved people who had joined Sherman’s March to the Sea, hoping to make it to safety. Tonya Bolden's historical YA novel sheds light on this event through the story of Mariah and Caleb, two young people who meet on the march and begin daring to dream of a bright future and happy life. However, the reality of their circumstances proves to be harsh and even tragic, as the perilous march continues toward Ebenezer Creek. Narrator Robin Eller beautifully captures the complex tone of this story, in all its hope and hardship.

The acclaimed ReVisioning History series is an ongoing collection of books by eminent scholars that reinterpret US history from diverse, intersectional perspectives. In this installment, award-winning historians Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross focus on the stories of a diversity of Black women, from colonial times to today, to demonstrate the complexities of their lives, their remarkable strength and spirit, and their significant impact on shaping communities across the country. Janina Edwards lends her voice to this rich exploration of Black womanhood and America.

The Wanjiru are the water-breathing, ocean-dwelling descendants of pregnant African women thrown overboard over the course of the transatlantic slave trade. Their historian, Yetu, carries all the traumatic memories of her people alone, while everyone else in the community lives peacefully with no knowledge of their past. When the weight of all the pain grows to be too much for Yetu, she eventually swims up to the surface to escape—and finds a whole new world with challenges and promises of its own. Strikingly original and affecting, The Deep draws its inspiration from a song of the same name by the rap group Clipping, led by Daveed Diggs—who narrates the audiobook.

I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too, Josephine Baker famously said at the 1963 March on Washington. Inspired by these words, MacArthur Genius Hanif Abdurraqib put together this collection of brilliant and profound essays about Black performance. Abdurraqib explores performances of all types, from the songs of Patti LaBelle and the Wu-Tan Clan to the comedy of Dave Chappelle to schoolyard fistfights, to reveal the ways in which such acts of expression resonate in American politics and culture. J.D. Jackson lends his exceptional narrative voice to A Little Devil in America, enriching the author's acute insights and personal reflections.

After escaping from slavery, Frederick Douglass became a leader of the abolitionist movement. Famed as a skilled orator (he visited Lincoln’s White House three times, once unannounced), Douglass spoke widely, not only throughout the United States but also in Ireland and Great Britain, and wrote three autobiographies. In the second of these, My Bondage and My Freedom, he recounts the inhumane treatment and oppression he endured while enslaved. Douglass ultimately demands for the unconditional emancipation of all African Americans, examining the toll of such injustice on society in general. The weight and vigor of Douglass’s words come to life in this audio edition, skillfully performed by the always excellent J.D. Jackson.

Percival Everett's brilliant reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a modern masterpiece. In this deeply compassionate retelling, Jim, the enslaved man who travels with Huck, narrates his own story. He is a character of remarkable depth, a man with his own goals and desires, fully in possession of his own agency. This is a deeply American story, a novel that gets at the very heart of what makes this country tick, and does so unflinchingly and with considerable humor. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Dominic Hoffman narrating the audiobook. He voices Jim with the kind of spirit and vitality that such a dynamic character demands.

Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, Olio is a collection that reinterprets the real experiences of a number of first-generation freed enslaved Africans who lived into the early 20th century. The Audible Original Olio Live is a beautiful recording of a special live performance of select poems from the collection, focusing on Black musicians. The performance, which took place at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City in February 2019, features a wonderful cast of actors accompanied by the pianist Jeremy Gill, embodying the tradition of music as fundamental to Black history and culture.

At 19, Amanda Gorman was named the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate; at 22, she became the youngest inaugural poet. Gorman’s powerful and radiant poetry captures moments of grief and crisis and remolds them to convey a message of unity, hope, and healing. This collection, read by Gorman herself, includes “The Hill We Climb,” the poem she memorably recited at the January 2021 inauguration of President Biden, alongside many other innovative and compelling pieces.

Opal Lee, known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” is an activist who worked in the movement to get Juneteenth recognized as a federal holiday. This gorgeous audiobook, written by Alice Faye Duncan and read by Hall of Fame narrator Bahni Turpin, celebrates Opal’s life and legacy while telling the inspiring true story of her fight for recognition and justice.

One of Audible's picks for the best kids audiobooks of 2022, Kwame Alexander's stirring The Door of No Return is a middle-grade listen that compassionately and accessibly tackles the transatlantic ordeal endured by so many captured and enslaved peoples during the 1800s. Accessible yet nuanced, the subject matter is approached by Alexander with incredible care and research, with fictionalized details that evoke introspection and emotion in equal measure.

When assigned a family tree project, a young student is unable to trace back her family beyond three generations. Her grandmother gathers the family and tells the story of how their ancestors, 400 years ago, were stolen from their homes and stripped of their heritage by white slave traders. Part of the 1619 Project, Born on the Water is a lyrical and thoughtful book about the long-term consequences of slavery and the little-known triumphs of Black resistance. Written by Newberry Honor winner Renée Watson and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who also narrates, this story asks young listeners to reflect on the importance of personal history and identity within the context of history.

Acclaimed writer Jacqueline Woodson has had a long, decorated career in writing for audiences of all ages. In the world of children's literature, she is particularly beloved, having been awarded the Newbery Medal now four times for modern classics including Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac & D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way, a gorgeous tale of legacy and connection. The narrative follows along with the author as she recounts stories from her personal family history to her own daughter, beginning with the story of the show way—a quilt sewn with patterns acting as hidden maps for enslaved folks seeking a path to freedom. Over the years, story upon story is woven in to this family fabric, emphasizing the importance of remembering those who made the present a possibility and acknowledging the work still to be done.

Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper is a short, celebratory overview of Juneteenth that would be an excellent introductory pick, especially for younger children. The audio version, narrated by Rhett Samuel Price and Tyla Collier, is read at a deliberate, unhurried pace, allowing the listener to really savor each word, and also includes a wonderful, breezy musical score underneath.

Broadway's Schele Williams, a director dedicated to authentic representation in ventures that bring together creativity and social justice, approaches art and activism through a new medium with Your Legacy. This audiobook introduces young listeners to the vibrancy and resilience of Black generations past. An empowering ode to the strides, struggles, and sacrifices of the African ancestors who refused to let their spirits be broken by the realities of slavery, this listen shines with love, hope, and respect.

In one of the latest kid-friendly offerings in Who HQ’s What Was? series, author Kirsti Jewel introduces our newest federal holiday in a way that young listeners will easily understand and connect with. Read by Adenrele Ojo, What Is Juneteenth? provides an overview of the American history that led to the creation of Juneteenth and shares stories of how the long-awaited news of freedom has been celebrated by African Americans over the decades.

The freshly released They Built Me for Freedom recounts the history of Houston's Emancipation Park, a plot of land purchased in 1872 by four formerly enslaved men. Its founding purpose was to celebrate and commemorate on Juneteenth, recognizing the glory and joy of liberation nationwide. To this day, the park serves as a place to connect and build community, hosting everything from protests to cookouts and offering both a place to gather and a commitment to remember. This listen makes the more than century-long story of the park available for young listeners, so they too can honor and observe the holiday in a way that's empowering and educational.