NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Nonfiction

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

Award winners, 1994-1999

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

Award winners, 2002-2009

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

Award winners, 2010-2019^[13]

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

Award winners, 2020-present^[13]

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

Multiple wins and nominations

Wins

2 wins

• Maya Angelou
• Michael Eric Dyson
• Barack Obama

Nominations

5 nominations Michael Eric Dyson 3 nominations Maya Angelou

2 nominations Henry Louis Gates Jr. Hill Harper Barack Obama Gil L. Robertson Tavis Smiley Imani Perry