My cousin and I discussed collaborating on a reading list. Here is what I came up with.
FICTION
The Wilful Girl by Anonymous (2000 BC)
The Book of Thoth by Anonymous (5th – 1st Century BC)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Acebe
Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Americanah by Chiamanda Ngozi Adiche
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin
“The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
The Water Dancer by Ta Nahiesi Coates
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Plum Bun by Jessie Redmon Faucet
The Conjure Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher
Bang! By Sharon G. Flake
A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
Roots by Alex Haley
“Thank You, M’am” by Langston Hughes
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Jonah’s Gourd Vine by Zora Neale Hurston
Of Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston
The First Part Last by Angela Johnson
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson
Corregidora by Gayle Jones
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones
Passing by Nella Larsen
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Jazz by Toni Morrison
“Recitatif” by Toni Morrison
Sula by Toni Morrison
A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
Killer Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers
The Women of Brewser Place by Gloria Naylor
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Cane by Jean Toomer
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
“Everyday Use” by Alice Walker
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Alice Walker
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Native Son by Richard Wright
NONFICTION
“The Danger of a Single Story” [TED Talk] by Chimanda Ngozi Adiche
Why We Should All Be Feminists by Chiamanda Ngozi Adiche
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin
Between the World and Me by Ta-Naheisi Coates
A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
Standing Up Against Hate: How Black Women In the Army Helped Change the Course of WWII by Mary Cronk Farrell
The Signifying Monkey by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
The Color of Water by James McBride
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
A Muslim American Slave by Omar Ibn Said
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
“We Need to Talk About an Injustice” [TED Talk] by Bryan Stevenson
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
POETRY
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou
“an agony. as now” by Amiri Baraka
“In the Front Yard” by Gwendolyn Brooks
The Complete Works of Langston Hughes
“The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes
“Harlem” by Langston Hughes
“Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde
“In the House of Yemanja” by Audre Lorde
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
Cane by Jean Toomer
BY WHITE AUTHORS, but have useful insight:
Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (fiction)
Evicted by Matthew Desmond (nonfiction)
Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography by Robert Hemenway (nonfiction)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (nonfiction)
I would like to add to it.
What do you think is missing from this list? Comment below.
Trigger Warnings: ableism, abuse, alcoholism, anger, anxiety, blood/gore/graphic injuries; death; depression; divorce; drugs; forced marriage; guilt; incest; loss of a loved one; manipulation; medical stuff; misogyny; pregnancy; racism; rape; sexism; slavery; suicide; terminal illness; trauma; violence; war
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