- Nov 7, 2022
- 5 min read

Herbalism Books by Black Herbalists Authors

Affiliate Links below, they don't cost you extra put I'd make a small commission on the sale.

►Books:

➡ The Divine Fiat: https://amzn.to/3q5svyY

➡ The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism: https://amzn.to/3cJtaTl

➡ The God Awakening Diet: https://amzn.to/3zU3L1Y

➡ African American Home Remedies: https://amzn.to/3B6pC76

➡ Working the Roots: https://amzn.to/3B5a9mc

➡ Holistic Self Diagnosis: https://amzn.to/3mUIRZC

➡Natural Health for African Americans: The Physicians' Guide (Physicians' Guide to Healing) : https://amzn.to/3HrEPkQ

➡ African Holistic Health: https://amzn.to/3xpBL3S

➡ Melanin: What Makes Black People Black: https://amzn.to/3xV8e3C

➡ Nature Power: Natural Medicine in Tropical Africa: https://amzn.to/3tIydc3

In today's video we're going to discuss the collection of books that I have on herbalism from African American or African authors. Unfortunately, because there's a lack of herbal resources written for and by Black herbalists, many are unaware of the African American influence on herbalism in America. This video and blog post will shed some awareness on how herbs can be used for health and healing among the African diaspora- and beyond.

The first book I want to talk about it's called the Divine Fiat. This is by Kwame M. Vaughan and you can actually see a picture of him in the book so let me find it this is him and he actually has pictures of his parents and him as a youngster which i really enjoy. Divine Fiat takes a look at herbalism from ancient civilizations to modern times. It explains the historical medicinal use of the earth's by individual in groups of indigenous people of color you can learn things here that you never learned in school so that's what it says on the back and so let's talk about some of the table of contents. Some of the content that you will find in here so he has the historical significance of herbalists, the historical history's greatest black herbalist is mentioned here, the evolution of herbalism, and important herbal use in black America today powerful herbs you can use to change your life and etc.

He does have some pictures in here and I did in fact learn some things even though I've actually made a homeschooling curriculum I actually made it before my children were born so i know a lot about African history, but he talks about different herbalists that I've never heard of so this is actually a really good book i picked it up it was about $25 and they only sell specifically on their site so I'll make sure i go ahead and list this down below.

The next book is still new in my library, so I can't really say whether I'd recommend it or not. It's an older book,as far as the publication date goes. It's called African American Home Remedies a Practical Guide with Usage and Application Data. The authors are Eddie L. Boyd and Leslie A. Shim and it looks like maybe they're pharmacists. Inside it says "for a significant portion of the African American population the use of home remedies and herbs was an important component of health care when they had no health insurance and or no funds and were unable to regularly visit conventional health care practitioners so African American home remedies utilizes information obtained from two studies conducted with the university of Michigan to demonstrate the use of over 100 home remedies and herbs and their relation to social demographic characteristics in the African American community." With a quick look inside, you can learn why home remedies were used and some of the traditional herbs that were used. They also have a small reference area of some remedies, so conditions treated with home remedies and herbs. For instance, under the section for anemia it lists blackberry root, black draught, sage tea sassafras, steak as in beef, sulfur and whiskey. There's also a reference area where you can see the illustrations of select herbs. and One herb that was listed is camphor, according to a study respondents reportedly used camphor to treat headache hearing loss to soften ear wax tooth a cold sores fever, blisters thrush nasal congestion cramps, menstrual cramps acne insect bites, muscle aches, arthritis, fever, bruises, sneezing asthma and too much milk while nursing and for vomiting.

They have tons of information on herbal remedies that I've never heard before such as cow slobber. One thing that you'll find is when you're looking at African American home remedies a lot of times the herbs would be hard to find because of just the dialect the way that we pronounce things or the names that we gave to herbs would be different than what you would find in books nowadays. It's always interesting to see what was used when you know you didn't have an option of anything else.

This next book is actually one of the first books that I bought on herbalism about this many years ago. The author came out with another book that came after this, but I believe it was more popular and it had a lot of the same information. This book is called the God Awakening Diet, I was always very interested in what I was eating, and I did even back then try to go more of vegan, and this is specifically of alkaline vegan. Inside you'll find a handful of recipes and surface level information. I think this is really good for beginners who are wanting who are interested in doing the as I say Dr. Sebi diet. There is a small amount of information on how to do herbal cleansing. In conclusion, there's very little herbal information as it's more about food and alkaline health.

The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism: the next one is actually a book that I just purchased as I just found out that it came out a couple of months ago. The author breaksthe book into sections based on the body systems. Sections include circulatory health, respiratory health,digestive health, liver health and sexual health, skin health and nervous system and immune system. She details eight different systems and then there's about five herbs in each of the sections with about 50 total herbs.

I do love the illustrations, she has pictures of herself in her store in New York. She also has lots of different pictures of her with herbs and I love her descriptions of herbs, epecially that she details the spiritual aspects. I think this book would be great for beginners and if you're not interested in learning about spiritual herbalism as opposed to scientific herbalism.

The next book is another older one as well, you can actually see photgraphs of the authors on the back. it is called The Physicians Guide Natural Health for African Americans. It is written by two MDs, Marcellus A. Walker and Kenneth B. Singleton. This book has "lifestyle and prescription free remedies for hypertension, diabetes, kidney problems, stroke, obesity, stress, heart disease" and more.

I get a lot of my books from the library, this book was from was it 1998 so it is an older book over 20 years, but you'll find that you know the same problems that we had as a community, are very much paramount. This book features sections about living with stress prejudice and negative emotions and how that impacts our health, developing a strategy for weight control, designing a detoxification program, nutritional supplements, minimizing environmental risk, stabilizing blood sugar, cardiovascular disease, giving up alcohol, drugs and tobacco, a holistic approach to avoiding cancer, exploring what it means to be black female and healthy. This book is a wealth of knowledge, it is beginner friendly and I would recommend this book if you want to understand about some of the problems that probably plague people in your family.

Watch the videos below to see my other reviews