These titles represent the best written since 1945 in the opinion of writers and critics that contribute to Ebony magazine. The complete list is featured in Ebony's 60th Anniversary Issue (November 2005, p. 42-45) and can be retrieved online (with a valid student ID) via the Wilson OmniFile database. Below, the publisher's item description is provided for each title when available.

PAL = Palatka Campus | OPC = Orange Park Campus | SAC = St. Augustine Campus

= Book | = DVD | = CASSETTE

Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth by Richard Wright - Publisher's Marketing: ""Black Boy is a classic of American autobiography, a subtly crafted narrative of Richard Wright's journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. An enduring story of one young man's coming of age during a particular time and place, Black Boy remains a seminal text in our history about what it means to be a man, black, and Southern in America."

SAC - PS 3545 .R815 1991 and PS 3545 .R815 Z5 1966

PAL - PS3545.R815 Z96 1998 and PS3545.R815 Z5 1993

Native Son by Richard Wright - Publisher's Marketing: ""Native Son" exploded on the American literary and cultural scene in 1940. The story of Bigger Thomas, a young black man living in the raw, noisy, crowded slums of Chicago's South Side, captured the hopes and yearnings, the pain and rage of black Americans with an unprecedented intensity and vividness. The text printed in this volume restores the changes and cuts - including the replacement of an entire scene- that Wright was forced to make by book club editors who feared offending their readers. The unexpurgated version of Wright's electirfying novel shows his determination to write honestly about his controverial protagonist. As he wrote in the essay "How 'Bigger' Was Born," which accompanies the novel: "I became convinced that if I did not write of Bigger as I saw and felt him, I'd be acting out of fear.""

SAC has the edition described and pictured - PS 3545 .R815 1991

Palatka has a first edition published by Harper & Brothers: PS3545.R815 N37 1940

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison - Publisher's Marketing: "Invisible Man" is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for 16 weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood, " and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," Joyce, and Dostoevsky."

SAC - PS3555.L625 I5 1995

PAL - PS3555.L625 I5 1995 and PS3555.L625 I5 1952

eBook available via LINCC to current students

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes - Publisher's Marketing: "Here, for the first time, is a complete collection of Langston Hughes's poetry - 860 poems that sound the heartbeat of black life in America during five turbulent decades, from the 1920s through the 1960s. The editors, Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel, have aimed to recover all of the poems that Hughes published in his lifetime - in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals, and in his books of verse. They present the poems in the general order in which Hughes wrote them, and also provide illuminating notes and a chronology of the poet's life. Arnold Rampersad, the author of the esteemed two-volume biography of Langston Hughes, has written a perceptive and moving introduction that throws light on Langston Hughes's distinctive voice as a poet and the world in which he lived."

SAC - PS3515 .U274 A17 1995

OPC - PS3515.U274 A17 1995

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry - Publisher's Marketing: "When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever."--The New York Times."

OPC - PS3515.A515 R3 1994

PAL - PS3515.A515 R3 1995

DVD edition stars Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee. Screeenplay written by Lorraine Hansberry

SAC - PN1997 Ra DVD

OPC - PN1997 .R159 1999 DVD

PAL - PN1997 Rais 1999 DVD

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin - Publisher's Marketing: "A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two "letters, " written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle...all presented in searing, brilliant prose, " The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature."

SAC - E185.61 .B195 1993

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin - Publisher's Marketing: "As one of the century's premier American writers, James Baldwin has profoundly altered the nation's social and literary consciousness. "Go Tell It on the Mountain", Baldwin's first novel, brings Harlem and the black experience vividly to life, as it starkly contrasts two generations of an embattled black family."

SAC - PS 3552 .A45 G58 1985

PAL - PS3503.A5527 G6 1953

The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century

PAL - E185.97.D73 A3 1968

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois - Publisher's Marketing: "When first published in 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk struck like a thunderclap, quickly establishing itself as a work that wholly redefined the history of the black experience in America, introducing the now famous "problem of the color line." In decades since, its stature has only grown, and today it ranks as one of the most influential and resonant works in the history of American thought.
This centennial edition contains a landmark Introduction by historian David Levering Lewis that brilliantly demonstrates how The Souls of Black Folk remains indispensable not only to an understanding of the history of race and democracy in America but to considerations of the future of racial and cultural comity in the twenty-first century."

SAC - E185.6 .D797 2003

PAL - E185.6 .D797 1993 and E185.5 .D817 1989

Dusk of Dawn: An Essay toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept by W.E.B. Du Bois

PAL - E185.97 .D73 1968

The World of Gwendolyn Brooks by Gwendolyn Brooks

Contains: A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, Maud Martha, The Bean Eaters, In the Mecca

PAL - PS3503 .R7244 A6 1971

Meridian by Alice Walker - Publisher's Marketing: "Meridian Hill is a young woman at an Atlanta college attempting to find her place in the revolution for racial and social equality. She discovers the limits beyond which she will not go for the cause, but despite her decision not to follow the path of some of her peers, she makes significant sacrifices in order to further her beliefs. Working in a campaign to register African American voters, Meridian cares broadly and deeply for the people she visits, and, while her coworkers quit and move to comfortable homes, she continues to work in the deep South despite a paralyzing illness. Meridian's nonviolent methods, though seemingly less radical than the methods of others, prove to be an effective means of furthering her beliefs."

SAC - PS3573 .A425 M4 2003

PAL - PS3573 .A425 M4 2003

By the Light of My Father's Smile by Alice Walker - Publisher's Marketing: "A family from the United States goes to the remote Sierras in Mexico--the writer-to-be, Susannah; her sister, Magdalena; her father and mother. And there, amid an endangered band of mixed-race Blacks and Indians called the Mundo, they begin an encounter that will change them more than they could ever dream. Moving back and forth in time, and among unforgettable characters and their stories, Walker crosses conventional borders of all kinds as she explores in this magical novel the ways in which a woman's denied sexuality leads to the loss of the much prized and necessary original self; and how she regains that self, even as her family's past of lies and love is transformed.
By the Light of My Father's Smile presents, as Alice Walker puts it, "a celebration of sexuality, its absolute usefulness in the accessing of one's mature spirituality, and the father's role in assuring joy or sorrow in this arena for his female children." It explores the richness and coherence of alternative culture, experience of sexuality as a celebration of life, of trust in Nature and the Spirit, even as it affirms the belief, as Walker says, "that it is the triumphant heart, not the conquered heart, that forgives. And that love is both timeless and beyond time.""

OPC - PS3573.A425 B9 1998

The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult by Alice Walker - Publisher's Marketing: "In the early eighties, the peaceful, reclusive life of poet and writer Alice Walker was interrupted by the appearance of three extraordinary gifts: a widely praised best-selling novel (The Color Purple), the Pulitzer Prize, and an offer from Steven Spielberg to make her novel into a film that would become a major international event. This last gift, which Walker identifies as "the knock at the door", led her into the labyrinth of a never-before-experienced creative collaboration, principally with Spielberg and Quincy Jones, and the "magic" and perils of moviemaking. The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult chronicles that period of transition, from recluse to public figure, and invites us to contemplate, along with her, the true significance of extraordinary gifts - especially when they are coupled, as in Walker's case, with the most severe criticism, overt hostility, and public censure from one's community of choice. The book is composed of entries from Walker's journals, correspondence - including letters to Spielberg, Jones, and Danny Glover, who played the much reviled Mister in the movie - and essays and articles that document the controversy in the African-American community upon the film's release. It also contains Walker's original screenplay for the film The Color Purple, a screenplay that ultimately was not used by Spielberg and has never been published. In three new essays, Walker looks back at what was taking place in her life at that time: the onset of a debilitating illness, the failing health of her adored mother, and the betrayal by her companion of thirteen years. How do the private and the public mesh, she asks, during periods of intense creativity and stress? In what ways do they support or weaken each other?"

OPC - PS3573.A425 Z47 1996

PAL - PS3573.A425 Z47 1996

The Color Purple by Alice Walker - Publisher's Marketing: ""The Color Purple" established Alice Walker as a major voice in modern fiction. Her unforgettable portrait of Celie and her friends, family, and lovers is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, "The Color Purple" is a classic of American literature.

Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self."

SAC - PS 3573 .A425 C6 1982

DVD edition stars Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Adolph Caesar, Margaret Avery, Rae Dawn Chong, Oprah Winfrey. The screenplay was written by Menno Meyjes.

SAC - PN1997 ColorP DVD

PAL - PN1997 Colo 1997 DVD

OPC - PN1997 .C646 1997 DVD

Roots by Alex Haley - Publisher's Marketing: "This bold...extraordinary...blockbuster..." (Newsweek magazine) begins with a birth in an African village in 1750, and ends two centuries later at a funeral in Arkansas. And in that time span, an unforgettable cast of men, women, and children come to life, many of them based on the people from Alex Haley's own family tree.
When Alex Haley was a boy growing up in Tennessee, his grandmother used to tell him stories about their family, stories that went way back to a man she called "the African" who was taken aboard a slave ship bound for Colonial America. As an adult, Alex Haley spent twelve years searching for documentation that might authenticate what his grandmother had told him. In an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered the name of "the African"--Kunta Kinte, as well as the exact location of the village in West Africa from where he was abducted in 1767.
While Haley created certain unknown details of his family history, ROOTS is definitely based on the facts of his ancestry, and the six generations of people--slaves and freedmen, farmers and lawyers, an architect, teacher--and one acclaimed author--descended from Kunte Kinte."

PAL - E185.97.H24 A33 2000 and E185.97.H24 A33 1976

SAC - E 185.97 .H24 A33 1976

OPC - E 185.97 .H24 A33 1976

DVD edition stars LeVar Burton, John Amos, Ben Vereen, Cicely Tyson, Thalmus Rasulala, Edward Asner, Ralph Waite, Lorne Green, Vic Morrow, Chuck Connors, John Schuck, Leslie Uggams, Robert Reed, Lou Gosset, O.J. Simpson. Teleplay written by William Blinn, Ernest Kinoy, James Lee, M. Charles Cohen.

SAC - PN1997 Roots 2007 DVD

PAL - PN1997 Roots 2007 DVD

Beloved by Toni Morrison - Publisher's Marketing: "Shifting in time between the years preceding the Civil War and the years immediately following it. "Beloved" is the story of how an escaped slave tries to overcome the tragic death of her daughter. Morrison's lyrical narrative weaves together the supernatural and the tangible, and the result is a dazzling achievement and a spellbinding reading experience."

SAC - PS3563 .O8749 B4 2004

SAC - Paperback rack

PAL - PS3563.O8749 B4 1987b

PAL - Unabridged audiobook read by the author: PS3563.O8749 B4 2000 AUDBK cass

If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes - Publisher's Marketing: "This story of a man living every day in fear of his life for simply being black is as powerful today as it was when it was first published in 1947. The novel takes place in the space of four days in the life of Bob Jones, a black man who is constantly plagued by the effects of racism. Living in a society that is drenched in race consciousness has no doubt taken a toll on the way Jones behaves, thinks, and feels, especially when, at the end of his story, he is accused of a brutal crime he did not commit."

PAL - PS3515.I713 I3 1973

The Street by Ann Petry - Publisher's Marketing: "As much a historical document as it is a novel, this 1946 winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship is the poignant and unblinkingly honest story of a young black woman's struggle to live and raise her son by herself amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s."

OPC - PS3531.E933 S75 1985

From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans (Originally titled/also known as: From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans) by John Hope Franklin - Publisher's Marketing: "Since its publication in 1947, "From Slavery to Freedom" has maintained its preeminence as the most authoritative history of African Americans. The authors detail the journey of African Americans from their origin in the civilizations of Africa, through slavery in the Western Hemisphere, to the successful struggle for freedom in the West Indies, Latin America, and the U.S."

SAC - E185 .F825 1988 and E185 .F825 1988, E185 .F825 1974

PAL - E185 .F825 1988 and E185 .F825 1988, E185 .F825 1967

OPC - E185 .F825 1956

In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family in the Old South by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger - Publisher's Marketing: "The matriarch of a remarkable African American family, Sally Thomas went from being a slave to a "virtually free" slave who ran her own business and purchased one of her sons out of bondage. This book offers a vivid portrait of Thomas, her extended family, and of the life of slaves before the Civil War."

SAC - E444 .F825 2006

eBook available via LINCC to current students

Here I Stand by Paul Robeson - Publisher's Marketing: "Renowned actor and singer Paul Robeson spent his life battling for the civil rights of all Americans. Robeson was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and wrote his famous memoir, Here I Stand, as a bold answer to his accusers. "This amazing man, this great intellect, this magnificent genius with his overwhelming love of humanity is a devastating challenge to a society built on hypocrisy, greed and profit-seeking at the expense of common humanity."
-- The New York Times"

SAC - E185.97 .R63 A3

Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America by Lerone Bennett - Publisher's Marketing: "A vivid, passionate history of black Americans--from their roots in Africa to their lives in contemporary America. In this newly revised edition of an established classic, Bennett relates with clarity and vision the experiences of "the other Americans"."

PAL - E185 .B4 1962

Negro Firsts in Sports by A. S. "Doc" Young. With illus. by Herbert Temple

PAL - GV697.A1 Y6 1963

Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown - Publisher's Marketing: "During his first year at Howard University, Claude Brown wrote an article for the magazine Dissent about growing up in Harlem. The piece attracted the attention of a publisher, who encouraged him to write his autobiography. The result, Manchild in the Promised Land, traces Claude Brown's own transformation from a hardened, streetwise young criminal to a successful, self-made man.

This autobiographical novel, in print for more than thirty years, has been widely praised for its portrayal of the "lost" generation of African-Americans whose parents left the sharecropping lifestyle of the South for the crowded inner cities of the North."

SAC - E185.97.B86 A3 1965

PAL - E185.97.B86 A3 1965

OPC - E185.97.B86 A3 1965

Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power by Kenneth B. Clark

PAL - F128.9.N3 C65 1965

Autobiography of Malcolm X - Publisher's Marketing: "In its searing pages, Malcolm X the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement to veteran writer and journalist Alex Haley. In a unique collaboration, Alex Haley worked with Malcolm X for nearly two years, interviewing, listening to, and understanding the most controversial leader of his time. Raised in Lansing, Michigan, Malcolm Little's road to world fame was as astonishing as it was unpredictable. After drifting from childhood poverty to petty crime, Malcolm found himself in jail. It was there that he came into contact with the teachings of a little-known Black Muslim leader named Elijah Muhammed. The newly renamed Malcolm X devoted himself body and soul to the teachings of Elijah Muhammed and the world of Islam, and became the Nation's foremost spokesman. When his own conscience forced him to break with Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, to reach African Americans across thecountry with an inspiring message of pride, power, and self-determination. The Autobiography of Malcolm X defines American culture and the African-American struggle for social and economic equality that has now become a battle for survival. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-white citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issue of our day. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed, but whose message is timeless. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand America."

SAC - E185.97.L5 A3

PAL - E185.97.L5 A3 1965

eBook available via LINCC to current students

Jubilee by Margaret Walker - Publisher's Marketing: "The fortunes of a mulatto girl--as a slave during the Civil War and then as a woman freed by the Emancipation Proclamation."

PAL - PS3545.A517 A8 1966

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou - Publisher's Marketing: "Tenderly, joyously, sometimes in sadness, sometimes in pain, Maya Angelou writes from the heart and celebrates life as only she has discovered it. In this moving volume of poetry, we hear the multi-faceted voice of one of the most powerful and vibrant writers of our time."

SAC - PS3551.N464 Z466 1997

PAL - PS3551.N464 Z466 1969

OPC - PS3551.N464 Z466 1993

eBook available via LINCC to current students

Audiobook read by the author:

OPC - PS3551 .N464 Audbks.

The Music of Black Americans: A History by Eileen Southern - Publisher's Marketing: "Beginning with the arrival of the first Africans in the English colonies, Eileen Southern weaves a fascinating narrative of intense musical activity, which has not only played a vital role in the lives of black Americans but has also deeply influenced music performance in the United States and many other parts of the world. Dr. Southern fully chronicles the singers, instrumentalists, and composers who created this rich body of music and skillfully describes the genres and styles that characterize it from its earliest manifestations among a people in slavery to the rap beat of the late twentieth century. Along the way, she covers numerous topics - such as Colonial-Era music, Revolutionary War performers, church music, minstrelsy, ragtime, swing, concert music, soul, pop, and opera - bringing them to life and placing them in their historical and cultural contexts."

PAL - 780.973 S727 1971

OPC - ML3556 .S74 1971

Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown - Publisher's Marketing: "Arguably the greatest African-American poet of the century, and one of the most important American poets, Sterling A. Brown was a contemporary of Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Jean Toomer; as a part of this group, and individually, he has been instrumental in bringing the traditions of African-American folklife to readers all over the world."

OPC - PS3503.R833 A17 1980

The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. selected by Coretta Scott King - Publisher's Marketing: "Includes 120 excerpts from speeches, sermons, and writings, and chronology."

SAC - E185.97.K5 A25

PAL - E185.97.K5 A25 1983

Thomas and Beulah: Poems by Rita Dove - Publisher's Marketing: "Dove is the Poet Laureate of the United States for 1993-94. She teaches creative writing at the University of Virginia, where she is Commonwealth Professor of English."

PAL - PS3554.O884 T47 1986

A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African American Athlete by Arthur R. Ashe Jr.

Track and Field - Publisher's Marketing: "African-American athletes have been excelling in track and field since the first modern Olympics. While this volume tells the story of such internationally known athletes as Carl Lewis, Jesse Owens and Wilma Rudolph, among others; it also introduces or reminds us of such steller performers as John Woodruff, Wyomia Tyus and Nell Jackson. This volume is devoted completely to the African-American's participation in track & field. It reveals the legends and records of club and college participants, as well as coaches -- including the achievements of athletes in the traditional black colleges."

SAC - GV1060.6 .A84 1993

Basketball - Publisher's Marketing: "Ashe makes a fast-break to fairness and understanding in telling the story of the African-American basketball player. This book traces the development of blacks' participation in the sport, from the club players of the '20s to the colleges to the professionals of today, including Hall of Famers."

SAC - GV885.7 .A84 1993

Baseball - Publisher's Marketing: "This informative book gives readers the whole history of blacks in baseball, from its infancy in black colleges to the present, covering the establishment of both major leagues and the Negro Leagues, Jackie Robinson's reintegration of professional sports, and Curt Flood's struggle to establish a free agency."

SAC - GV863.A1 A84 1993

Black Families in White America by Andrew Billingsley - Publisher's Marketing: "The classic book which first debunked the myths surrounding the black family, revealing the black family to be diverse, healthy, adaptive, and resilient."

PAL - E185.86 .B5 1968

Succeeding Against the Odds by John H. Johnson with Lerone Bennett, Jr. - Publisher's Marketing: "Black multimillionaire Johnson, assisted by Bennett, executive editor of Ebony magazine, recounts with simplicity, zest and humorous anecdotes how, as a 24-year-old from a small Mississippi River town, he parlayed a $500 loan into a publishing, cosmetics and insurance empire. Negro Digest , the first magazine he founded, was followed by Ebony (the first national black publication) and Jet . Thanks to success brought about by his sound social, business and political instincts, Johnson now enjoys a life spent ``going first class,'' including owning a Palm Springs mountain-top home; participating in corporate board meetings (where he is accustomed to being the only black); and hobnobbing with the likes of Michael and Jesse Jackson and Gorbachev. Credited by some with ``inventing'' the black consumer market, Johnson is proudest of his role in reporting and abetting the crusade of Martin Luther King Jr. And despite his successes, he contends, without bitterness, that his millions could have been billions were it not for the "live wire of race.''"

PAL - Z473.J75 A3 1989

Middle Passage by Charles Johnson - Publisher's Marketing: "The year is 1830, and Rutherford Calhoun, a roguish, newly freed slave, ships out of New Orleans as a stowaway to escape an undesirable marriage. To his shock and horror, he discovers that this vessel is a slave clipper bound for Africa. One of the most daring and compassionate works of fiction in recent years."

SAC - PS3560.O3735 M5 1990

PAL - PS3560.O3735 M5 1990

OPC - PS3560.O3735 M5 1990

Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan - Publisher's Marketing: "A hilarious and heartbreaking look at four vibrant black women in their thirties, who aren't holding their breath waiting for Mr. Right--but they haven't stopped hoping. Instead they draw on each other for support as they struggle through life."

SAC - Paperback rack

PAL - PS3563.C3868 W35 1992

Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia

OPC Reference - Ref E185.86 .B542 1993

Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?: How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Business Empire by Reginald F. Lewis and Blair S. Walker - Publisher's Marketing: "Tracing Lewis's rise from an east Baltimore working-class neighborhood to Harvard Law School and ultimately into the elite circle of Wall Street deal-makers, journalist Blair Walker shows how Lewis's lifelong hunger for wealth and personal achievement drove him to success at whatever he turned his hand to. Walker also provides us with a rare insider's view of Lewis, the iron-willed negotiator and brilliant business strategist in action as he finesses one phenomenal deal after another."

OPC - HC102.5.L493 A3 1995

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela - Publisher's Marketing: "Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account of the unforgettable events since his release that produced at last a free, multiracial democracy in South Africa. To millions of people around the world, Nelson Mandela stands, as no other living figure does, for the triumph of dignity and hope over despair and hatred, of self-discipline and love over persecution and evil."

PAL - DT1949.M35 A3 1995

My American Journey by Colin Powell - Publisher's Marketing: "Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness.
MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, "the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers" inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision."

PAL - E840.5.P68 A3 1996

OPC - abridged audiobook read by Colin Powell: E840.5.P68 A32 1995 Audbks

Equal Justice Under Law: An Autobiography by Constance Baker Motley - Publisher's Marketing: "This wise and affecting memoir is the inside story of the great efforts leading up to the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the fight to implement it-and its implications for affirmative action and black poverty today.
A black woman who moved in the corridors of power in the middle of this century, Constance Baker Motley has been a pioneer in both black civil rights and women's rights. As the key attorney assisting Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, she argued a dozen cases before the Supreme Court (winning all but one), and her representation of James Meredith in his bid to enroll in the University of Mississippi made her famous. Subsequently, as Manhattan borough president and a U.S. district court judge, she has fulfilled the highest aspirations of our legal and political system.
This book, the most detailed account to date of the legal conflicts of the civil rights movement, is also an account of Motley's struggle, as a black woman, to succeed, a record of a life lived with great courage and responsibility."

SAC - KF373 .M64 A34 1999

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams - Publisher's Marketing: "Thurgood Marshall stands today as the great architect of American race relations, having expanded the foundation of individual rights for all Americans. His victory in the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case outlawing school segregation, would have made him a historic figure even if he had not gone on to become the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court. Remembered as a gruff, aloof figure, Marshall in fact had great charisma and a large appetite for life. Away from the courtroom, he was a glamorous figure in Harlem circles, known as a man-about-town who socialized with prizefighter Joe Louis, singer Cab Calloway, and other black luminaries. He lived in every decade of the century and knew every president from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, becoming a respected member of Washington's power elite, known for his savvy and quick wit. But beneath Marshall's charm was a hard-nosed drive to change America that led to surprising clashes with Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X. Most intriguing of all was Marshall's secret and controversial relationship with FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, revealed here for the first time."

SAC - KF8745.M34 W55 1998

Called "the most insightful hip hop writer on the planet" by Rolling Stone, Nelson George offers an insider's tour through a multimedia phenomenon of which rap music is only the audible manifestation, and also includes drugs, fashion, incarceration, basketball, entrepreneurship, technology, and language. Examining hip hop as music, a style, a business, a myth, and a moral code, he turns hip hop over to look at the ways it has been treated by Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Wall Street to reach not just young black consumers but all young people. Hip Hop America shows us why against all odds, hip hop has held a steady grip on American popular culture for over twenty years."

SAC - ML3531 .G46 1999

The Michael Eric Dyson Reader - Publisher's Marketing: ""Over the past ten years, the work of Michael Eric Dyson has become the first stop for readers, writers, and thinkers eager for uncommon wisdom on the racial and political dynamics of contemporary America. Whether writing on religion or sexuality or notions of whiteness, on Martin Luther King, Jr. or Tupac Shakur, Dyson's keen insight and rhetorical flair continue to surprise and challenge. This collection gathers the best of Dyson's growing body of work: his most incisive commentary, his most stirring passages, and his sharpest, most probing and broad-minded critical analyses. From Michael Jordan to Derrida, Ralph Ellison to the diplomacy of Colin Powell, the mastery and ease with which Dyson tackles just about any subject is without parallel."

SAC - E185.625 .D969 2004

PAL - E185.625 .D969 2004

eBook available via LINCC to current students

Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line by Michael Eric Dyson - Publisher's Marketing: "Dyson reveals the pernicious influence of racial thinking across the broad canvas of American social and cultural life, from the disjunction between how whites and blacks view the world, to the way perceptions of black masculinity thwart black leadership, to the politics of nostalgia that keeps us looking to an imaginary past rather than creating a positive future. Through painful examples drawn from within the black community - sexual conflict in the black church, the myth of the "head Negro, " relations between black men and women - he depicts our ongoing failure to break free of the rule of race. "In a color-blind society, we can only see black and white, " warns Dyson as he argues for color consciousness informed by history and shaped by hope. Provocative and compelling, Race Rules is the most important work to date from the "hiphop intellectual" who stands at the forefront of his generation of black public thinkers."

PAL - E185.615 .D95 1997

The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid - Publisher's Marketing: "Kincaid's new and long-awaited novel is a powerful and unforgettable story of loss, longing, loving, and survival that resonants with the proud insurgence of the human will. The story of Xuela, whose mother dies at the moment she is born, presents "an indeliable portrait of an angry woman" (New York Times) "most comparable, perhaps, to Camus' The Stranger" (Washington Post Book World)."

SAC - PR9275 .A583 K5636 1997

Bone Black by bell hooks - Publisher's Marketing: "A memoir of ideas and perceptions, Bone Back shows the unfolding of female creativity and one strong-spirited child's journey toward becoming a writer. She learns early on the roles women and men play in society, as well as the impotence of children, especially black female children. She sheds new light on a society that beholds the joys of marriage for men and condemns anything more than silence for women. In this world, too, black is a woman's color - worn when earned - daughters and daddy are strangers under the same roof, and crying children are often given something to cry about. In school, hooks sees that integration most resembles corralling, with black children herded, prodded, and pushed like cattle. And the learning agenda is to teach these children to forget their history and the injustices done to them and to embrace the ways of white folk. hooks finds comfort in solitude, good company in books. She also discovers, in the motionless body of misunderstanding, that writing is the most vital breath. She is taught by an elder that quilting is the way a woman learns patience. And hooks's patience, coupled with the insight and bravery that readers have come to expect from her, is rewarded with the strength to keep in touch with the wounded parts of herself and to grow beyond the scars by stretching the confines of history, tradition, and family to encompass her expansive spirit."

SAC - E185.97.H77 A3 1996

Race Matters by Cornel West - Publisher's Marketing: "The scholar, theologian, and activist who has been acclaimed as one of the most eloquent voices in our ongoing racial debate now bridges the gulf between black and white America in a work of enormous resonance and moral authority. West takes on the questions of politics, economics, ethics, and spirituality and addresses the crisis in black leadership."

SAC - E185.615 .W43 1994

PAL - E185.615 .W43 2001b

The Cornel West Reader - Publisher's Marketing: "An anthology of the best work of an absolutely essential philosopher of the modern American experience, this reader brings together West's essays and interviews on race, religion, politics, philosophy and the arts."

SAC - E185.86 .W4384 1999

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama - Publisher's Marketing: "In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father--a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man--has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey--first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance."

SAC - E185.97 .O23 A3 2004 and E185.97 .O23 A3 2004b

PAL - E185.97 .O23 A3 2004