Special Collections

Black Liberation Reading List

Description: These books on are widely used by activists, students, archivists, and curators to better understand the the Black experience in America and recommended by New York Public Library and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. #adults #general


Showing 76 through 81 of 81 results

The Nickel Boys

by Colson Whitehead

In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Florida, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: he is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college.

But for a black boy in the American South in the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called The Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men."

In reality, The Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors, where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr. King's ringing assertion "throw us in jail and we will still love you."

His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked and the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at The Nickel Academy.

Based on the true story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.

A New York Times Bestseller

Date Added: 02/03/2021


Fences

by August Wilson

From legendary playwright August Wilson comes the powerful, stunning dramatic bestseller that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize.Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. This is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Now an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Denzel Washington, along with Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Viola Davis.

Date Added: 02/03/2021


Summary and Analysis of The Underground Railroad

by Worth Books

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of The Underground Railroad tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Colson Whitehead&’s book.   Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.   This short summary and analysis of The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead includes:  Historical contextChapter-by-chapter summariesAnalysis of the main charactersThemes and symbolsImportant quotesFascinating triviaGlossary of termsSupporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work  About The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead:   Colson Whitehead&’s National Book Award–winning The Underground Railroad is a bold, original, and unflinchingly brutal portrait of slavery during the darkest period in American history.   On the cusp of womanhood, Cora is a runaway slave, pursued by her memories of abuse and abandonment, and by the implacable and notoriously cruel slave hunter known as Ridgeway. Her journey on the Underground Railroad—in Whitehead&’s conceit, a literal, subterranean railway—propels her journey across a dangerous landscape in search of freedom.   The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of fiction.

Date Added: 02/03/2021


The Autobiography of Malcolm X

by Malcolm X

With its first great victory in the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the civil rights movement gained the powerful momentum it needed to sweep forward into its crucial decade, the 1960s.

As voices of protest and change rose above the din of history and false promises, one voice sounded more urgently, more passionately, than the rest. Malcolm X—once called the most dangerous man in America—challenged the world to listen and learn the truth as he experienced it. And his enduring message is as relevant today as when he first delivered it.

In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, 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, 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 journeyed on a road to fame as astonishing as it was unpredictable. 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 renamed Elijah Muhammad. The newly renamed Malcolm X devoted himself body and soul to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and the world of Islam, becoming the Nation’s foremost spokesman.

When his conscience forced him to break with Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity to reach African Americans across the country 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. Malcolm’s fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.

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.

A New York Times Bestseller

Date Added: 02/03/2021


What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

by Damon Young

“A blazing memoir in essays” (Entertainment Weekly) that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be black (and a man) in America.An NPR Best Book of the YearA Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite of the YearA Finalist for the NAACP Image AwardA Finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for NonfictionA Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American HumorLonglisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayFor Damon Young, existing while black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst, where questions such as “How should I react here, as a Professional Black Person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant.Both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker is a hilarious and honest debut that chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.“Young delivers a passionate, wryly bittersweet tribute to Black life in majority-white Pittsburgh . . . A must read.” —Booklist (starred review)“Young’s charm and wit make these essays a pleasure to read; his candid approach makes them memorable.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Date Added: 02/03/2021


Brown

by Kevin Young

James Brown. John Brown's raid. Brown v. the Topeka Board of Ed. The prize-winning author of Blue Laws meditates on all things "brown" in this powerful new collection.

Divided into "Home Recordings" and "Field Recordings," Brown speaks to the way personal experience is shaped by culture, while culture is forever affected by the personal, recalling a black Kansas boyhood to comment on our times. From "History"--a song of Kansas high-school fixture Mr. W., who gave his students "the Sixties / minus Malcolm X, or Watts, / barely a march on Washington"--to "Money Road," a sobering pilgrimage to the site of Emmett Till's lynching, the poems engage place and the past and their intertwined power.

These thirty-two taut poems and poetic sequences, including an oratorio based on Mississippi "barkeep, activist, waiter" Booker Wright that was performed at Carnegie Hall and the vibrant sonnet cycle "De La Soul Is Dead," about the days when hip-hop was growing up ("we were black then, not yet / African American"), remind us that blackness and brownness tell an ongoing story. A testament to Young's own--and our collective--experience, Brown offers beautiful, sustained harmonies from a poet whose wisdom deepens with time.

Date Added: 02/03/2021



Showing 76 through 81 of 81 results