Two of the most transformative books for me was To Die For The People and Revolutionary Suicide.
Every American should read all of the books on that list plus more.
Thanks for posting.

From Ghetto to Glory by Bob Gibson and Soledad Brother by George Jackson. So many other great books too numerous to mention.

I love reading too and like how you mention that everyone should read all of the books on that list plus more. I'm a voracious reader yet there's so many books I haven't yet read.

These kinds of lists are fun jumping off points for anyone to find a book that might interest them. It's like talking with a fascinating person!

that was great. I read it a few years back after I visited Monticello. Never feel the same about old TJ.....

that others are adding books that have meant a lot to them!

From Ghetto to Glory by Bob Gibson, which I read when I was around the fourth grade, had a tremendous impact on me. Gibson was my favorite pitcher from the St. Louis Cardinals.

Happy new year dragonlady!

like Octavia Butler's novel Kindred, which is about a contemporary black woman who repeatedly travels back to the antebellum US, where she is a slave. It culminates with her attempting to escape her great grandfather/slave master who wants to rape her. The worst part of the entire enterprise, though, is that when she comes back to the present, the scars she receives during her enslavement remain with her

I also cannot recommend The Known World highly enough. It is such a complicated, smart novel about a slave-owning black family in antebellum Virginia. The premise of the book might sound mundane (or something like a post on YouTube from a rightwinger about "but teh blacks had slaves too!!!&quot , the writing is more like poetry than prose. I swear there are sentences in that book that rank among the best in the history of American literature. In fact, stylistically, I think it most reminds me of Beloved, but it's unfair to compare the two because they are so different.

I frequently teach the Narrative of the Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano and always enjoy it. It is really the ur-text of slave narratives and most of the conventions Equiano uses appear in every subsequent slave narrative; the significant difference is that Equiano begins by talking about his childhood in Africa (which, it turns out, might have been pure confabulation, but scholars remain divided on this point and I don't think the discussion is that important).

Oh! And The Motion of Light on Water is one of my favorite memoirs of all time, especially if you get the unexpurgated text. Sam Delaney is a brilliant writer of a genre I don't really like--sci-fi--and in Motion of Light it's as if his writing prowess reaches its full blossom. There are innumerable reasons to praise it, but the one that sticks out the most is his sly, funny, and unforgivingly smart recollections of cruising Greenwich Village in the early 60s while his wife, the poet Marilyn Hacker, is back at home.

I don't recall seeing any Claude McKay books on the list, but his Home to Harlem (and Banjo, honestly) deserve to be mentioned. Home to Harlem inspired DuBois to write that reading it made him want to take a long bath to clean off the filth (it's about a train porter who hooks up with women in various towns, gambles, etc). Anyone who can make the DuBois of that era--back when he was imperious as heck--that uncomfortable is OK with me.

So much more to write, but I hate writing long posts. I'll just finish by saying that I, too, love Black Boy, or at least the first 2/3. It's several times better, IMO, than Native Son.

of Black Boy drags. I re-read it recently, just to see how it matched up to my memory.

Totally forgot about The Known World. That book was AMAZING. If I recall, it was the authors first book. How is that even possible, to write something like that on the first go?

I will put The Motion of Light on Water my list. I enjoy memoirs, usually find them easy to read.

"Kindred" sounds absolutely horrifying and amazing.

Kindred is married to a white guy in the present, so the possibility of being raped by her great (great great perhaps) grandfather has resonances it might not otherwise have.

I'm heading out now but will read and savor your post again later. Thank you tishaLA. Happy new year to you and your loved ones!

And I hope you and your loved ones have an amazing New Year's Day.

There are several there that I need to read myself.

The Bluest Eye made me want to burn down the world after I'd read it. I couldn't bear it. Beloved convinced me that there were some things in this world worth living for.

Was there seriously no Baldwin on this list or did I just miss them????

But if I were writing the list, his book of essays, The Price of the Ticket, would be there , too. And then they could just eliminate Condi Rice's book from the list.

I'm all for putting popular books on the list but... Terri McMillan??

and Women of Brewster Place. Ordinarily,of the three fields I tested in (early American literature, 19th Century American literature, and African American literature), the AfAm list was a breeze to get through, but damn those two books were a chore. Thankfully each list was about 100 books long, so the idea that I'd have to recall anthing at all about Terri fucking McMillan was narrow, but I did need to finish it. It was more torturous than reading some of the many Puritan sermons

Also: E Lynn Harris is on the list above. His writing is so bad, he makes Terri fucking McMillan look like the love child of Henry James and Marcel Proust.

Not appropriate is all I remember. Perils of being a precocious reader...

Um, what about the noir detective series in LA.... Walter Mosely! Those were great if there is going to be popular books on the list. He did some sic-fi too that was kind of fun.

I've only read a couple of his books because, honestly, I seldom have time to read things I want and have to focus instead on what I need to read, but if I did have more time, he would be one of the writers I'd happily read more of. Everyone knows Devil in a Blue Dress, but Black Betty might be even better...and there's so much more.

Also, as an Angelino, his novels give a sense of the ways territories have changed in the city both in terms of racial migration and power dynamics.

Devil in a Blue Dress at number 55.

After writing my post, I just read yours. I feel the same was about Beloved. Toni Morrison's writing blows my mind. It's difficult to even describe it in just a few words, so I just chose the word 'exquisite.' I'm so delighted to read that this book influenced you positively as well!

When you sit down to read Toni, you better be prepared to be sitting for a long, LONG time.

that have enriched my life:

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. - Collected writings. Probably why it's not on this list. Essential.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Roots by Alex Haley
Beloved by Toni Morrison - Exquisite.
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin - my dad had it in his bookshelf and I read it when I was in seventh grade. It interested me in checking out other books from libraries.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Angela Davis reader - she covers a wide variety of topics with fierce attention to detail.
Assad - fascinating how she has enjoyed Cuba since her exile from the U.S.
Miles by Miles Davis - a cantankerous, funny guy.

Also check out these authors speaking on youtube.

Happy new year to you and your loved ones.

I was pleased to see that I have read many of those books, mostly when I was younger.

Bookmarking so that I can read these again.

Encyclopedia of Black America edited by W. Augustus Low & Virgil A. Clift (1981) which was passed down to me is very helpful in educating young minds of today.