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This book literally "kicked my ass" because it mirrored so many of my own experiences as a black person in America. The descriptions weren't just close --- they were dead on and thus, astounding.

We rely, in this world, on the visual aspects of humanity as a means of learning who we are. This, Ralph Ellison argues convincingly, is a dangerous habit. A classic from the moment it first appeared in 1952, Invisible Man chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness. Searching for a context in which to know himself, he exists in a very peculiar state. "I am an invisible man," he says in his prologue. "When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me." But this is hard-won self-knowledge, earned over the course of many years.

Invisible Man is certainly a book about race in America, and sadly enough, few of the problems it chronicles have disappeared even now. But Ellison's first novel transcends such a narrow definition. It's also a book about the human race stumbling down the path to identity, challenged and successful to varying degrees. None of us can ever be sure of the truth beyond ourselves, and possibly not even there. The world is a tricky place, and no one knows this better than the invisible man, who leaves us with these chilling, provocative words: "And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" (via amazon.com)

Updated Feb 7, 2009

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The Bluest Eye (Vintage International): Toni Morrison

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The delicate, distant protagonist of Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" --- an 11-year-old mocked for her dark skin, a girl who dreams of trading her brown eyes for Shirley Temple blue, resonated with me when I read this book several years ago, and still resonates today.

One of the broader subjects is the psychological impact and destructive power of models of beauty, especially feminine beauty. Another important topic that ties into that is self-hatred and lack of self-acceptance.

This book is set during the 1940's and so issues of race and racism loom large in this book. Morrison manages to describe the horrific using the most poetic style. There is no way to talk away from this novel without a broader perspective. (via amazon.com)

Updated Jan 3, 2009

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A Mercy: Toni Morrison

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Nobel laureate Morrison returns more explicitly to the net of pain cast by slavery, a theme she detailed so memorably in Beloved. Set at the close of the 17th century, the book details America's untoward foundation: dominion over Native Americans, indentured workers, women and slaves. A slave at a plantation in Maryland offers up her daughter, Florens, to a relatively humane Northern farmer, Jacob, as debt payment from their owner. The ripples of this choice spread to the inhabitants of Jacob's farm, populated by women with intersecting and conflicting desires. Jacob's wife, Rebekka, struggles with her faith as she loses one child after another to the harsh New World. A Native servant, Lina, survivor of a smallpox outbreak, craves Florens's love to replace the family taken from her, and distrusts the other servant, a peculiar girl named Sorrow. When Jacob falls ill, all these women are threatened. Morrison's lyricism infuses the shifting voices of her characters as they describe a brutal society being forged in the wilderness. Morrison's unflinching narrative is all the more powerful for its relative brevity; it takes hold of the reader and doesn't let go until the wrenching final-page crescendo. (via amazon.com)

Updated Jan 13, 2009

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Hungry for More: A Keeping-it-Real Guide for Black Women on Weight and Body Image: Robyn McGee, Joycelyn M. Elders

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An important book for black women to read and pass out to their female family members and friends. "Hungry for More" confronts some of the serious obesity and body image issues that end up taking a lot of us to our graves too soon. (via amazon.com)

Updated Jan 1, 2009

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The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

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Malcolm X is one of the most important modern politcal philosophers. His personal metamorphosis is recounted here my Alex Haley with extraordinary detail...a must read if one is to understand black political philosophy. The tragedy is that, just as his views had evolved, he was betrayed and murdered.

Amazon.com Review
Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture--try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening. When Malcolm tells coauthor Alex Haley, "People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book," he voices the central belief underpinning every attempt to set down a personal story as an example for others. Although many believe his ethic was directly opposed to Martin Luther King Jr.'s during the civil rights struggle of the '60s, the two were not so different. Malcolm may have displayed a most un-Christian distaste for loving his enemies, but he understood with King that love of God and love of self are the necessary first steps on the road to freedom. --Wendy Smith (via amazon.com)

Updated Oct 2, 2008

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The African American Experience: Black History and Culture Through Speeches, Letters, Editorials, Poems, Songs, and Stories

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This wide-ranging archive, capturing more than four centuries of African American history and culture in one essential volume, is at once poignant, painful, celebratory, and inspiring.

The African American Experience is a one-of-a-kind and absolutely riveting collection of more than 300 letters, speeches, articles, petitions, poems, songs, and works of fiction tracing the course of black history in America from the first slaves brought over in the 16th century to the events of the present day. All aspects of African American history and daily life are represented here, from the days of abolition and the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement and the current times. Organized chronologically, here are writings from the great political leaders including Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama; literary giants including Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, and bell hooks; scholars such as Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; artists including Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Wynton Marsalis, Run-DMC, the Sugar Hill Gang, and Chuck Berry; athletes such as Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson; and many more. (via amazon.com)

Updated Jan 18, 2009

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A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Martin Luther King, James M. Washington

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Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), civil rights leader, advocate of worldwide social justice, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, inspired and sustained the struggle for freedom, nonviolence, and interracial unity. His words and deeds continue to shape the lives and destinies of millions. (via amazon.com)

Updated Feb 7, 2009

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1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African American History: Jeffrey C. Stewart

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Where can one go to get a comprehensive and entertaining account of the most significant events, individuals and social processes of African-American history? Fear not, because 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African-American History is history at your fingertips-in a concise, accessible, easily-read format.

Jeffrey C. Stewart, Associate Professor of History at George Mason University, takes the reader on an all-encompassing journey through the entirety of African-American history that is pithy, provocative, and encyclopedic in scope. Here are all the people, terms, ideas, events, and social processes that make African-American history such a fascinating and inspiring subject.

1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African-American History covers all the significant information in six broad sections: Great Migrations; Civil Rights and Politics; Science, Inventions and Medicine; Sports; Military; Culture and Religion. It will entertain as well as instruct, and it can be read from beginning to end as well as opened at random and read at any length without confusion.

A necessary addition to every family's library, 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African-American History presents African American history in a fun, engaging and intelligent way. (via amazon.com)

Updated Feb 7, 2009

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The Souls of Black Folk (Oxford World's Classics): W. E. B. Du Bois, Brent Hayes Edwards

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Originally published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk is a classic study of race, culture, and education at the turn of the twentieth century. With its singular combination of essays, memoir, and fiction, this book vaulted Du Bois to the forefront of American political commentary and civil rights activism. It is an impassioned, at times searing account of the situation of African Americans in the United States, making a forceful case for the access of African Americans to higher education and extolling the achievements of black culture.

Du Bois advances the provocative and influential argument that due to the inequalities and pressures of the "race problem," African American identity is characterized by "double consciousness." (via amazon.com)

Updated Feb 11, 2009

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Slaves in the Family (Ballantine Reader's Circle): Edward Ball

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Writer Edward Ball opens Slaves in the Family with an anecdote: "My father had a little joke that made light of our legacy as a family that had once owned slaves. 'There are five things we don't talk about in the Ball family,' he would say. 'Religion, sex, death, money and the Negroes.'" Ball himself seemed happy enough to avoid these touchy issues until an invitation to a family reunion in South Carolina piqued his interest in his family's extensive plantation and slave-holding past. He realized that he had a very clear idea of who his white ancestors were--their names, who their children and children's children were, even portraits and photographs--but he had only a murky vision of the black people who supported their livelihood and were such an intimate part of their daily lives; he knew neither their names nor what happened to them and their descendents after they were freed following the Civil War. So he embarked on a journey to uncover the history of the Balls and the black families with whom their lives were inextricably intertwined, as well as the less tangible resonance of slavery in both sets of families.

From plantation records, interviews with descendents of both the Balls and their slaves, and travels to Africa and the American South, Ball has constructed a story of the riches and squalor, violence and insurrection--the pride and shame--that make up the history and legacy of slavery in America. (via amazon.com)

Updated Feb 11, 2009