Black Classic Reading List
ANGELOU, MAYA
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
ARMSTRONG, WILLIAM H
Sounder
BALDWIN, JAMES
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Another Country
Going to Meet the Man
BAMBARA, TONI CADE
Gorilla, My Love
BARAKA, AMIRI (LEROI JONES)
The Amiri Baraka Reader
BROOKS, GWENDOLYN
Blacks
BUTLER, OCTAVIA
Kindred
Fledgling
CHILDRESS, ALICE
Trouble in Mind
COOPER, ANNA JULIA
A Voice from the South
CRUSE, HAROLD
The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual
CULLEN, COUNTEE
On These I Stand
DELANY, MARTIN R.
Blake; Or the Huts of America
DOUGLASS, FREDERICK
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845)
The Heroic Slave
DOVE, RITA
Thomas and Beulah
DU BOIS, W.E.B.
The Souls of Black Folk
DUMAS, HENRY
Play Ebony, Play Ivory
ELLISON, RALPH
Invisible Man
EQUIANO, OLAUDAH
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa
EVANS, MARI
I Am the Black Woman
FULLER, CHARLES
A Soldier’s Play
GAINES, ERNEST J.
Lesson Before Dying
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
A Gathering of Old Men
GARVEY, MARCUS
Message to the People
GRIMKE, CHARLOTTE FORTEN
The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke
HALEY, ALEX
Roots
HANSBERRY, LORRAINE
A Raisin in the Sun
HARPER, FRANCES E. W.
Complete Poems
HARPER, MICHAEL
Images of Kin: New and Selected Poems
HIMES, CHESTER
If He Hollers Let Him Go
HUGHES, LANGSTON
Mulatto
The Big Sea , selected poems
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
Nation 23 (June 1926): 69294
The Best of Simple
HULL, GLORIA T., PATRICIA BELL SCOTT, AND BARBARA SMITH, eds.
But Some of Us Are Brave
HURSTON, ZORA NEALE
Mules and Men
Their Eyes Were Watching God
JACOBS, HARRIET
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
JOHNSON, JAMES WELDON
The Autobiography of an ExColored Man
God’s Trombones
KENNEDY, ADRIENNE
Funnyhouse of a Negro
LARSEN, NELLA
Quicksand
Passing
LORDE, AUDRE
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
MCKAY, CLAUDE
Home to Harlem
MORRISON, TONI
Beloved
Sula
Song of Solomon
MOSLEY, WALTER
47
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
The Man In My Basement
NAYLOR, GLORIA
The Women of Brewster Place
PETRY, ANN
The Street
REED, ISHMAEL
Mumbo Jumbo
New and Collected Poems 19642006
SANCHEZ, SONIA
I’ve Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems
SCHUYLER, GEORGE S.
Black Empire
SHANGE, NTOZAKE
for colored girls who have considered suicide /when the rainbow is enuf
TOOMER, JEAN
Cane
WALKER, ALICE
The Color Purple
WALKER, DAVID
David Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles
WALKER, MARGARET
For My People
Jubilee
WASHINGTON, BOOKER T.
Up from Slavery
WHEATLEY, PHYLLIS
Selected poems
Complete Works
WIDEMAN, JOHN EDGAR
Brothers and Keepers
WILLIAMS, CHANCELLOR
The Destruction of Black Civilization
WILLIAMS, JOHN A.
The Man Who Cried I Am
WILSON, AUGUST
Fences
The Piano Lesson
WRIGHT, RICHARD
Native Son
Black Boy
X, MALCOLM & ALEX HALEY
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Prepared by Dr. Askhari Johnson Hodari, author of The African Book of Names (HCI, 2009) and Lifelines: The Black Book of Proverbs (Broadway Books, 2009) (both available wherever books are sold). For more information, or to download this document, visit drhodari.com. You have permission to copy and distribute this document as long as this entire footer remains visible and intact. Copyright ©2011 Dr. Askhari Johnson Hodari. All rights reserved.