Suggested Readings List

 

(Books that exposes and/or promotes the African Heritage culture as compiled by members of the University of Delaware’s African heritage community. This list is not complete and suggestions are always suggested.  Send suggestions to Ted Davis at teddavis@udel.edu)

 

Achebe, Chinua, Things Fall Apart 

 

Angelou, Maya, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 

 

Baldwin, James, Native son


Baldwin, James, The fire next time.
 
Baldwin, James, Go tell it on the mountain.

 

Baraka, Amiri, Somebody Blew Up America (poem)

 
Bell, Derrick, And We are Not Saved

 

Bell, Derrick, Faces at the Bottom of the Well

 

Bennett, Lerone, The Shaping of Black America: The Struggles and Triumphs of

African-Americans, 1619-1990s

 

Biko, Steve, I Write What I Like

 

Bradley, David, The Chaneysville incident

 

Breen, T. H. and Stephen Innes, Myne Owne Ground: Race and freedom in Virginia’s Eastern Shore 1640-1676

 

Carmicheal, Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black power: the politics of liberation in America

 

Chestnutt, Charles, The marrow of tradition

 

Cose, Ellis, The rage of the privileged class: why are middle-class blacks angry?  Why should America care?

 

Douglass, Frederick, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass

 

DuBois, W.E.B, The Souls of Black Folk

 
Ellison, Ralph, Invisible Man

Evers, Myrlie, For Us, the Living
 
Fanon, Franz, The Wretched of the Earth

 

Frazier, Edward Franklin,  Black Bourgeoisie

 

Goldstone, Lawrence, Dark bargain: slavery, profits, and the struggle for the Constitution.

 

Hooks, bell, Teaching to Trangress

 
Hurston, Zora Neal, Their Eyes Were Watching God  

 

Johnson, Charles Richard, Middle Passage  

Johnson, James Weldon, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

 

King Jr., Martin Luther, Where do we go from here: chaos or community?

 

King Jr., Martin Luther, Why we can’t wait

 

Larsen, Nella.  Quicksand and Passing

 

Lester, Julius, To Be a Slave

 

Lorde, Audre, Zami, A New Spelling of My Name

 

Lott,  Tommy, African American Philosophy: Selected Readings (anthology)

 

Malcolm X, By any means necessary

 

McWhorter, John H,.  Losing the race: self-sabotage in Black America

 

Memmi, Alfred, The Colonizer and the Colonized

 

Morrison, Toni, Beloved

 

Robinson, Randall, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks

 

Sertima, Ivan Van, They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America

 

Shange, Ntozake, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuff

 

Steele, Shelby, The content of our character: a new vision of race in America

 
Turner, Nat,, The confessions of Nat Turner, leader of the late insurrection in
Southampton, Va..


Walker,
Alice, The color purple

 

Washington, Booker T., Up from slavery

 

West, Cornel, Democracy Matters

 

Wilkins, Roger, Jefferson’s pillow: the founding fathers and the dilemma of black patriotism

 

Williams, Chancellor, Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of Race from 4500 BC to 2000 AD

 

Woodson, Carter G., The Mis-education of the Negro

 

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