A Black Historical Horror Roundup
By: Briana Wilvert
Historical horror often fails to get its flowers, but if Sinners proved anything, it's that Black historical horror deserves its place in the cultural zeitgeist. With commentary on the social issues of their chosen eras, each of these books offer something unique. The horrors vary from ghosts, to beasts, to KKK-demons, but they all prove that, sometimes, racism is scarier than the monster.
RING SHOUT by P. Djèlí Clark
Maryse Boudreaux and her band of resistance fighters battle KKK demons in 1915 Georgia after the airing of The Birth of a Nation. This novella brings a speculative bent to history with an endearing cast of heroines. Perfect for readers that loved Sinners and want more of a similar vibe.
LONE WOMEN by Victor LaValle
Blending horror, fantasy, and historical fiction, this novel follows Adelaide Henry, a young woman who has just lost her family in California and now must make her way to Montana to homestead. It’s 1915, and both the journey and prospect of homesteading alone as a woman are dangerous, but even worse is what lies inside the trunk she drags with her everywhere. Full of suspense, the story explores adventure, horror, and sisterhood in the Wild West, through a diverse cast.
I'LL MAKE A SPECTACLE OF YOU by Beatrice Winifred Iker
Combine hoodoo, history, and dark academia and you’ll get this suspenseful horror about grad student Zora Robinson unearthing the brutal secrets of a respected HBCU. If you’re just getting into historical horror, this one features both a historical and a contemporary timeline. It’s gothic, queer, and a fresh twist on the dark academia space.
THE REFORMATORY by Tananarive Due
In Jim Crow Florida, preteen Robert Stephens Jr. is sentenced to six months at a reformatory school for boys. Able to see ghosts, or haints, the truth of the horrors of the reformatory are revealed to Robert. Meanwhile, his family races against time to get Robert out of the reformatory before it’s too late. This novel takes a devastating facet of American history and lays it bare.
KINDRED by Octavia E. Butler
We had to include a classic! Set in the 1970s, the novel follows Dana, a modern Black woman who is inexplicably transported to the antebellum South, where she saves the son of a plantation owner from drowning. From then on, Dana is repeatedly taken back, seemingly tied to the boy’s fate. But each trip is longer and more horrifying than the one before.
Learning more about Black history doesn’t need to come in the form of nonfiction. These historical horrors weave the brutality of reality together with genre elements to bring the terrors of the past to life. We hope you find a story to learn from and love!