Black History Month 2011 - an introduction

Welcome to the Waterstones.com Black History Month page, which has been a feature on Waterstones.com for the last five years. I feel history is very important as it indicates why we are who we are, and helps to ground us about where we want to go. Black history is especially important to me as it is so varied - and is about so much more than the slave trade. I mean the history and positive contribution of black people to every fabric of life from music to literature, and from science to fashion. It is therefore my pleasure and honour to recommend the books selected for this year's feature, and to recommend to you six books that I wish I had written...

Bijoux M'Bayo, Product Planning and Buying Manager, Waterstones.com

Rough Crossings - "Black history covering the American Revolution and the struggle for freedom all brought to vivid life by a master historian. A riveting and insightful read."

Go Tell it on The Mountain - "Semi-autobiographical classic written by one of the most talented writers of his time. Put simply - a beautiful read."

Noughts and Crosses - "A Romeo and Juliet-type love story, told with a thought-provoking twist by one of my favourite authors."

Rasta Mouse - "Rasta Mouse has quite deservedly been adapted on CBBC. He and his band of friends (the Easy Crew) always look to set things right, and this book is no exception. Full of positive vibes. All books in the series recommended."

Roots - "an epic book outlining six generations of Alex Haley's family history right down to the fascinating and heart breaking capture into slavery of Kunta Kinte along the Gambian Coast of West Africa. This book was ground breaking in every sense."

The Color Purple: "A haunting, and breathtakingly beautiful story of Celia who overcomes enormous adversity and carves out a fulfilling existence against all odds."

See more Black History Month books and eBooks here...

Black History Month (BHM) is held every October in Britain. The key aims are to:

The origins of BHM go back to 1926 when Carter G Woodson, editor for 30 years of the Journal of Negro History, established African Caribbean celebrations in America. It is still celebrated there in February each year. Akyaaba Addai Sebbo is viewed as the person who set up Black History Month in Britain. Akyaaba worked for the Greater London Council (GLC) and worked with them to establish the event in 1987.

"We could call it just history month, but it's more than that. It's about forgotten heroes and stories that we never get told at school. We are taught more about the Battle of Waterloo at school than the relevance of Dr Martin Luther King. We hope this month goes some way to fill in the gaps."

Willber Wilberforce, Director of Programmes, 1xtra

Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe is an ever-present on university and school syllabuses everywhere, and in recent years authors such as Andrea Levy, who won both the the 2004 Orange Prize and the 2005 Whitbread Prize (now the Costa Award) with her novel of the Caribbean diaspora, Small Island, and the wonderful Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who won the Orange Prize in 2006 with Half of a Yellow Sun, have demonstrated the cultural importance and popularity of both black writing and by extension, black history. Benjamin Zephaniah is one of our most popular and socially aware performance poets, and the precociously brilliant Helen Oyeyemi, who wrote her novel, The Icarus Girl, while still at school, is one of the latest crop of talented young black authors.

You can read more about these and many other leading black authors on our Black History Month Author Index.