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.
| Year | Book | Author | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of 'Malcolm X | and Ralph Wiley | Winner | [1] |
| 1996 | ||||
| When We Were Colored | Winner | [2] | ||
| 1999 | ||||
| With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together | and Ruby Dee | Winner | [3] |
| Year | Book | Author | Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Sally Hemings, An American Scandal | Winner | [4] | ||
| 2003 | Keeping the Faith | Winner | |||
| Finalist | |||||
| Bill Clinton and Black America | |||||
| Growing Up X | |||||
| Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters | |||||
| 2004 | Why I Love Black Women | Winner | [5] | ||
| 2005 | Hallelujah! The Welcome Table | Winner | [6] | ||
| 2006 | Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? | Winner | |||
| Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir | Finalist | ||||
| and Myrlie Evers-Williams | |||||
| 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality in America | |||||
| Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America | |||||
| 2007 | Winner | [7] | |||
| Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster | Finalist | [8] | |||
| Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete | |||||
| Not in My Family: AIDS in the African American Community | |||||
| 2008 | Not on Our Watch | and John Prendergast | Winner | [9] | |
| Finalist | [10] | ||||
| Brother, I'm Dying | |||||
| Know What I Mean?: Reflections on Hip-Hop | |||||
| Race and Racism in the Chinas: Chinese Racial Attitudes Toward Africans and African-Americans | |||||
| 2009 | Letter to My Daughter | Winner | [11] [12] |
| Year | Book | Author | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | In Search of Our Roots | Winner | [14] | |
| Freedom in My Heart: Voices From the United States National Slavery Museum | Finalist | [15] | ||
| Our Choice | ||||
| Brain Surgeon: A Doctor's Inspiring Encounters With Mortality and Miracles | and Keith Black | |||
| Family Affair: What It Means to Be African American Today | ||||
| 2011 | Winner | [16] | ||
| Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority | Finalist | |||
| Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts of Women in SNCC | ||||
| Surviving and Thriving 365 Days in Black Economic History | ||||
| 2012 | Winner | [17] | ||
| Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America | Finalist | |||
| Super Rich | ||||
| Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to Be Black Now | Touré | |||
| 2013 | Winner | [18] | ||
| Fraternity | Finalist | [19] | ||
| Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation | ||||
| Power Concedes Nothing: One Woman's Quest for Social Justice in America, from the Courtroom to the Kill Zones | ||||
| 2014 | Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery | 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 | Finalist | |||
| High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society | ||||
| Letters to an Incarcerated Brother: Encouragement, Hope, and Healing for Inmates and Their Loved Ones | ||||
| and Donald Yacovone | ||||
| 2015 | Winner | [21] | ||
| Bad Feminist | Finalist | |||
| Place Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America | ||||
| Who We Be: The Colorization of America | ||||
| 2016 | Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga | Winner | [22] | |
| 50 Billion Dollar Boss: African American Women Sharing Stories of Success in Entrepreneurship and Leadership | and Andrea Hoffman | Finalist | ||
| Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America | ||||
| Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America | ||||
| 2017 | Hidden Figures | Winner | [23] | |
| Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul | Finalist | |||
| Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White | and Raymond Obstfeld | |||
| 2018 | Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies | (posthumous) | Winner | [24] |
| Black Detroit – A People’s History of Self-Determination | Finalist | |||
| We Were Eight Years In Power: An American Tragedy | ||||
| 2019 | For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics | , Yolanda Caraway, Leah D. Daughtry, Minyon Moore, Veronica Chambers | Winner | [25] |
| Finalist | ||||
| Black Girls Rock! Owning Our Magic. Rocking Our Truth | ||||
| May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem | ||||
| and Lara Love Hardin |
| Year | Book | Author | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Winner | [26] | ||
| Breathe: A Letter to My Sons | Finalist | |||
| STONY THE ROAD: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow | ||||
| What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essay | ||||
| 2021 | Winner | [27] | ||
| and Kali Nicole Gross | Finalist | [28] | ||
| Driving While Black | ||||
| Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America | ||||
| We're Better Than This | ||||
| 2022 | Winner | [29] [30] | ||
| Dance Theatre of Harlem | and Paul Novosel | Finalist | ||
| Just As I Am | ||||
| My Remarkable Journey | ||||
| Renegades: Born in the USA | ||||
| 2023 | Finding Me | Winner | [31] | |
| Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America | Finalist | [32] | ||
| Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation | ||||
| Who’s Black and Why?: A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race | and Andrew S. Curran | |||
| Requiem for the Massacre: A Black History on the Conflict, Hope, and Fallout of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre | ||||
| 2024 | and Charly Palmer | Winner | [33] | |
| Black AF History: The Un–Whitewashed Story of America | Finalist | [34] | ||
| BLK ART: The Audacious Legacy of Black Artists and Models in Western Art | ||||
| Iconic Home: Interiors, Advice, and Stories from 50 Amazing Black Designers | Black Interior Designers and June Reese | |||