Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
Jane McKeene is a black young woman living in a post-Civil War world; a post-Civil War world that is being overrun by the undead. In Dread Nation‘s version of history the war ended because the dead rose up and started killing people and turning them and the Native and Negro Reeducation Act required that children like Jane be sent to special schools that educate them in the arts of proper society as well as in how to fight and kill the shamblers (zombies).