African American Writers:
A Celebration



MTSU calendar of events for African-American History Month
MTSU Library Guide 2/98-updated 1 /99
http://www.mtsu.edu/~vvesper/afam.html
Middle Tennessee State University
Comments to vvesper@ulibnet.mtsu.edu


Web Sites for African American Literature

  • Online Literary Criticism Collection
  • What2Read
  • Afro-American Almanac
  • African American Women Writers of the 19th century New York Public Library Digital Library Collection.
  • African American Literature Book Club
  • African American Women Online Archival Collections
  • African American Writers Brief biographical information. Sources for more information listed.
  • African-American Authors of Georgia
    A listing of Georgia authors.
  • Chronology of African American Writers
    African American authors arranged chronologically from 1746 to 1990. Includes full text of poems and links to resources.
  • Old School Books
    Black "pulp fiction" Spin: "Walking the mean streets with hearts set on dreams they know damn well they'll never reach, these authors keep it realer than any rapper knows how . . . They testify to how much was lost when these novelists couldn't get read as they should have."
  • Harlem Renaissance
    From PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide An Ongoing Online Project by Paul P. Reuben. Resources on writers from the Harlem Renaissance. A plus for this site is that it shows you the MLA citation.
  • Voices from Gaps
    Voices From the Gaps is a World Wide Web project that focuses on the lives and works of women writers of color in North America. Each author page presents biographical, critical and bibliographical information about the writer as well as images and quotes pertinent to her life and works. Each page includes, in addition, links to other resources on the World Wide Web.
  • QBR Guide to Black Classics
  • African American Voices in Popular Fiction
  • Organization of Black Screenwriters
  • Writing Black USA
  • CNN Black History Month
  • Surfin'with Angela:African American Romance Writers
  • African American Voices and Visions: A Selected Bibliography of Fiction
  • Sites of interest to African Americans
  • African-American Mystery Page
  • African American Mystery Writers from BookBrowser.
  • New Afrika Empires
  • Esu's IslandWeb site of Jess Mowry about his work, advice to young writers and other interesting links.
  • U.S. Postage Stamps about Black History

    Books and Authors


    This selected bibliography includes only a few of the many titles in the MTSU collection by African American writers. There are titles by new and old authors, poems, drama, novels and a few works of non-fiction by well known and not so well known African American writers. If a title or author isn't listed, please look up the information in the online catalog, or ask one of the librarians for assistance in locating what you want.

    A-L or M-Z

    A-L
    "The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart."
    --Maya Angleou

    Maya Angelou
    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811 Sou
    Soul looks back in wonder / [illustrated by] Tom Feelings ; [poems by Maya Angelou ... et al.]. 1st ed. New York : Dial Books, c1993.

    MAIN COLLECTION 814.54 An4w
    Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now / Maya Angelou. 1st ed. New York : Random House, c1993.

    MAIN COLLECTION 917.306 An41a 1991
    All God's children need traveling shoes / Maya Angelou. Vintage Books ed. New York : Vintage Books, 1991, c1986.

    More Links to Maya Angelou

    Literary and biographical info from the Internet Public Library

    917.306 An41h The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou

    Maya Angelou: Teacher's Resources file

    Tina McElroy Ansa
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 An81b Baby of the family / Tina McElroy Ansa. 1st ed. San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, c1989.

    James Baldwin
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 B19 St2
    Conversations with James Baldwin / edited by Fred L. Standley and Louis H. Pratt. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, c1989.

    MAIN COLLECTION 812.54 B19an 1988
    Another country / James Baldwin. New York : Dell, 1988, c1962.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 B19h 1963
    Go tell it on the mountain. New York, Dial Press, 1963 [c1953]

  • List of web sites about James Baldwin

    Toni Cade Bambara
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 B29s
    The salt eaters/ by Toni Cade Bambara 1st ed. New York : Random House, 1980.

    Salt Eaters is set in a small, Southern town. Velma Henry, a long-time civil rights activist and feminist, sits in a hospital gown on a stool listening to the musical voice of Minnie Ransom. Old Minnie is a healer; she heals people by contacting the points of physical or psychical pain in her patients and relieving them. She is helped by her spirit guide, Old Wife. Scars heal and wounds close in minutes under her touch.

    David Bradley
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 B72c The Chaneysville incident : a novel / David Bradley. 1st ed. Story of John Washington, a black historian, who comes back to Chaneysville, the site where 13 runaway slaves were killed, to visit a dying friend.

    Connie Briscoe
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 B777b Big girls don't cry / Connie Briscoe. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c1996.

    Interview with Connie Briscoe from the Quarterly Black Review

    Cecil Brown
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 B8124c
    Brown, Cecil, 1943- Coming up down south : a memoir of a southern childhood / Cecil Brown. 1st ed. Hopewell, NJ : Ecco Press, c1993.

    Octavia Butler
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 B97p
    Parable of the sower / Octavia E. Butler. A Four Walls Eight Windows 1st ed. New York : Four Walls Eight Windows, c1993

    Reader Reviews from Amazon

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 B97w
    Wild seed / Octavia E. Butler. Popular Library ed. New York, N.Y. : Popular Library, 1988, c1980d

    Reader reviews from Amazon

    Unoffical Octavia Butler Home Page(not working)
    Octavia Butler Page

    Bebe Moore Campbell
    Main Collection 813.54 C151s
    Singing in the Comeback Choir, Putnam, c1998.
    Reviews Life is good for Maxine, an executive producer of a popular talk show, but her security is shattered by a phone call from home. She must go back to her old neighborhood, that she would like to forget, to take care of her grandmother.

    Interview

    Lorene Cary
    MAIN COLLECTION 373.18 C25b
    Black ice / Lorene Cary. 1st Vintage Books ed. New York : Vintage Books, 1992

    Reading Guide for Blace Ice

    Barbara Chase-Riboud
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 C38s 1980
    Sally Hemings / Barbara Chase-Riboud. New York : Avon, 1980, c1979.

    Charles Waddell Chesnutt
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.4 C42co
    Chesnutt, Charles Waddell, 1858-1932. The conjure woman, and other conjure tales / Charles W. Chesnutt ; edited and with an introduction by Richard H. Brodhead. Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press, 1993.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.4 C42s Chesnutt, Charles Waddell, 1858-1932. The short fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt. Edited and with introd. by Sylvia Lyons Render. Washington, Howard University Press, 1974.

    Photo

    Cyrus Colter
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 C72r
    The rivers of Eros. [1st ed.] Chicago, Swallow Press [1972]

    "I was telling stories before I could write. I like to tell stories, and I like to talk to things. If you've read fairy tales, you know that everything can talk, from trees to chairs to tables to brooms. So I grew up thinking that, and I turned it into stories."--J. California Cooper J. California Cooper
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 C786so
    Cooper, J. California. Some love, some pain, sometime / J. California Cooper. 1st ed. New York : Doubleday, c1995.

    Read more about the author and her books

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 C786h
    Cooper, J. California. Homemade love / J. California Cooper New York : St. Martin's Press, c1986.

    Countee Cullen
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.52 M99e
    My soul's high song : the collected writings of Countee Cullen, voice of the Harlem Renaissance / edited and with an introduction by Gerald Early. Anchor Book ed. New York : Doubleday, 1991.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811 C89
    Color, by Countee Cullen. New York, London, Harper & Brothers, 1925.

    Samuel R. Delany
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 D374si
    Silent interviews : on language, race, sex, science fiction, and some comics : a collection of written interviews / Samuel R. Delany. Hanover, NH : Wesleyan University Press, c1994.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 D374s
    Stars in my pocket like grains of sand / Samuel R. Delany. Toronto ; New York : Bantam Books, 1984.

    More info about Samuel Delany

    Rita Dove MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 D751t
    Through the ivory gate : a novel / Rita Dove 1st Vintage contemporaries ed. New York : Vintage Books, 1993.

    More info about Rita Dove

    Ralph Ellison
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 El5i 1989
    Invisible man / Ralph Ellison. Vintage Books ed. New York : Vintage Books, 1989, c1952

    Ralph Ellison

    Ronald Fair
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 F14w
    We can't breathe [by] Ronald Fair. [1st ed.] New York, Harper & Row [c1972]

    Leon Forrest
    MAIN COLLECTION 973.0496 F77r
    Relocations of the spirit : essays / by Leon Forrest. 1st ed. Wakefield, R.I. : Asphodel Press/Moyer Bell ; Emeryville, CA : Distributed in North America by Publishers Group West, c1994.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 F77t
    There is a tree more ancient than Eden. [1st ed.] New York, Random House [1973]

    Excerpt from By Dawn's Early Light: The Meteor in the Madhouse (Part III) by Leon Forrest

    More info

    Interview

    Ernest J. Gaines
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 G127l
    A lesson before dying / Ernest J. Gaines. New York : A. A. Knopf : Distribued by Random House, Inc. 1993.

    In A Lesson before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines demonstrates the ways in which people stubbornly declare the value of their lives in a time and place where those lives seemingly count for nothing, and where the imprisoned may find freedom even in the moment of their death.

    Resources Includes reading guides, author bio, excerpts, etc.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 G127a 1972
    The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman / by Ernest J. Gaines New York ; Toronto ; London : Bantam books, 1972, c1971.

    Nelson George
    MAIN COLLECTION 796.323 G29e
    Elevating the game : Black men and basketball / Nelson George. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c1992.

    MAIN COLLECTION 306.47 G29b
    Buppies, B-boys, Baps & Bohos : notes on post-soul Black culture / Nelson George. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollinsPublishers, c1992.

    Check the library catalog for other books by Nelson George.

    Nikki Giovanni
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 G43r
    Racism 101 / Nikki Giovanni ; foreword by Virginia C. Fowler. 1st ed. New York : W. Morrow, c1994.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 G43se
    Giovanni, Nikki. The selected poems of Nikki Giovanni. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow and Co., c1996.

    Information about Nikki Giovanni

    Marita Golden
    Main Collection 813.54 G566e
    The Edge of Heaven/ Marita Golden. New York, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1998.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 G566w
    A woman's place / Marita Golden. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1986.

    Marita Golden: A Personal Statement

    Lorraine Hansberry
    MAIN COLLECTION 812.5 H19Z N34a
    Nemiroff, Robert. To be young, gifted, and black; a portrait of Lorraine Hansberry in her own words. Adapted by Robert Nemiroff. [Acting ed.] New York, S. French [c1971]

    Raisin in the Sun Complete dialogue and searchable online concordance. Every word in the play is indexed.

    MAIN COLLECTION 812.5 H19rb
    Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965. A raisin in the sun : the unfilmed original screenplay / Lorraine Hansberry ; edited by Robert Nemiroff ; foreword by Jewell Handy Gresham-Nemiroff ; introduction by Margaret B. Wilkerson ; with a commentary by Spike Lee. New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Plume Book, c1992.

    More info and Reading guide to A Raisin in the Sun

    Lynn E. Harris
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 H2415a
    And this too shall pass : a novel / by E. Lynn Harris. 1st ed. New York : Doubleday, 1996.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 H2415i
    Invisible life : a novel / by E. Lynn Harris. New York : Anchor Books, 1994.

    813.54 H2415if
    If this world were Mine by E. Lynn Harris Story of four friends, whose friendship and deep bonds of intimacy are threatened by conflicts of career and romance.

    Chester Himes
    When Chester Himes was nineteen, he was chained upside down, beaten by police until he confessed to an armed robbery, sentenced for twenty to twenty-five years, and incarcerated in the Ohio State Penitentiary. That was in 1928. By the time he was paroled in 1936, he had become a nationally-known writer.
    ---exerpt from "PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG CONVICT" by H. Bruce Franklin, the John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University, Newark.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 H58y
    Yesterday will make you cry / Chester Himes. [New ed.] New York : Norton, c1998.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 H58i
    If he hollers let him go : a novel / by Chester Himes ; foreword by Graham Hodges. New York : Thunder's Mouth Press : c1986.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 H58p
    Plan B : a novel / by Chester Himes ; edited with an introduction by Michel Fabre & Robert E. Skinner. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, c1993.

    Langston Hughes
    A Cyber Guide to the Poetry of Langston Hughes
    Teacher resources/lesson plans. Includes links to full text of poems, biographical information, etc.

    MAIN COLLECTION 818.52 H87b
    Hughes, Langston, 1902- The big sea, an autobiography. New York, Hill and Wang [1963, c1940] 335 p. 21 cm.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.5 H87c
    The collected poems of Langston Hughes / Arnold Rampersad, editor, David Roessel, associate editor. 1st ed. New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1994.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 H874sh
    Short stories [of] Langston Hughes / Langston Hughes ; edited by Akiba Sullivan Harper ; with an introduction by Arnold Rampersad. 1st ed. New York : Hill and Wang, 1996.

    Kristin Hunter
    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic Hun
    Hunter, Kristin. The survivors / Kristin Hunter. New York : Scribner, [1975]

    "Nothing that God ever made is the same thing to more than one person. That is natural. There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle." Zora Neale Hurston
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 H946t 1978
    Their eyes were watching God : a novel / by Zora Neale Hurston ; with a foreword by Sherley Anne Williams. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [1978] c1937.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 H946c
    Hurston, Zora Neale. The complete stories / Zora Neale Hurston ; introduction by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c1995.

    Sources of information from the Internet Public Library

    Zora Neale Hurston site

    Charles Richard Johnson
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 J633m
    Johnson, Charles Richard, 1948- Middle passage / Charles Johnson. New York : Atheneum, 1990.

    Gayl Jones
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 J717e
    Jones, Gayl. Eva's man / Gayl Jones. 1st ed. New York : Random House, c1976.

    William Melvin Kelley
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 K287d
    Kelley, William Melvin, 1937- Dancers on the shore. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1964.

    John Oliver Killens
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 K555a
    Killens, John Oliver, 1916- And then we heard the thunder. [1st ed.] New York, Knopf, 1963, [c1962]

    Jamaica Kincaid
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 K573l
    Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy / Jamaica Kincaid. 1st ed. New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990.
    a novel about a West Indian girl who arrives in New York City to work as an au pair, never having seen anything beyond her tropical island - a person to whom bathrooms, elevators and winters are completely unknown. ---from NYtimes review.

    ''When I was a child I liked to read. I loved 'Jane Eyre' especially and read it over and over. I didn't know anyone else who liked to read except my mother, and it got me in a lot of trouble because it made me into a thief and a liar. I stole books, and I stole money to buy them. . . . Books brought me the greatest satisfaction. Just to be alone, reading, under the house, with lizards and spiders running around. . . .'' - Jamaica Kincaid, in an interview, Aug. 19, 1990. "

    Salon interview with Jamaica Kincaid

    NYtimes Interview

    Nella Larson
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 L321i
    An intimation of things distant : the collected fiction of Nella Larsen / edited and with an introduction by Charles R. Larson ; with a foreword by Marita Golden. New York : Anchor Books, 1992.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 L321q
    Larsen, Nella. Quicksand. New York, Negro Universities Press [1969]

    Biography
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 L321 D29
    Nella Larsen, novelist of the Harlem Renaissance : a woman's life unveiled / Thadious M. Davis. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, c1994.

    Julius Lester
    MAIN COLLECTION 398.2 L567b
    Lester, Julius. Black folktales / Julius Lester ; illustrated by Tom Feelings with an introduction by the author. 1st Evergreen ed. New York : Grove Weidenfeld, 1992.

    Audre Lorde MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 L88m
    The marvelous arithmetics of distance : poems 1987-1992 / Audre Lorde. 1st ed. New York : W.W. Norton, c1993.

    MAIN COLLECTION 814.54 L884s
    Sister outsider : essays and speeches / by Audre Lorde Trumansburg, NY : Crossing Press, c1984.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 L88b
    The black unicorn : poems / by Audre Lorde. 1st ed. New York : Norton, c1978.

    More info about Audre Lorde from Voices from the Gaps

    M-Z

    Clarence Major
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 M288s
    Major, Clarence. Swallow the lake. [1st ed.] Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press [1970]

    Paule Marshall
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M352d
    Marshall, Paule, 1929- Daughters / Paule Marshall. New York : Atheneum ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, 1991.

    Julian Mayfield
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M452h 1989
    Mayfield, Julian, 1928- The hit ; and, The long night / Julian Mayfield ; with a new foreword by Phillip M. Richards. Northeastern University Press ed. Boston : Northeastern University Press, 1989.

    Claude McKay
    MAIN COLLECTION 818.52 M19p
    The passion of Claude McKay; selected poetry and prose, 1912-1948. Edited with an introd. and notes by Wayne F. Cooper. New York, Schocken Books [1973]

    MAIN COLLECTION 818.5 M192h
    Home to Harlem / by Claude McKay ; foreword by Wayne F. Cooper. 1st Northeastern University Press ed. Boston : Northeastern University Press, 1987, c1928.

    Biographical infofrom Encarta.

    Biography
    MAIN COLLECTION 818.5 M192 C78
    Claude McKay : rebel sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance : a biography / Wayne F. Cooper. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, c1987.

    John McCluskey
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M132m
    McCluskey, John. Mr. America's last season blues : a novel / by John McCluskey, Jr. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 1983.

    James Alan McPherson
    813.54 M242c
    Crabcakes
    Simon & Schuster, 1998.
    The New York Times Book Review, Roy Huffman
    Part lilting memoir, part anxious meditation, Crabcakes picks up, at odd angles, themes from McPherson's short-story collection Elbow Room, which was awarded a 1978 Pulitzer Prize.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M242e
    Elbow room : stories / by James Alan McPherson. 1st ed. Boston : Little, Brown, c1977.

    Louise Meriwether
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M54d
    Meriwether, Louise. Daddy was a number runner / Louise Meriwether ; with a foreword by James Baldwin, and an afterword by Nellie McKay. 1st Feminist Press ed. New York : Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1986, c1970.

    N. Scott Momaday
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 M739g
    Momaday, N. Scott, 1934- The gourd dancer : [poems] / N. Scott Momaday ; drawings by the author. 1st ed. New York : Harper & Row, c1976.

    Internet Resources about N. Scott Momaday

    Toni Morrison--The first author ever to receive both the Nobel Prize for Literature and a Pulitzer.

    "The whole point is to have the characters move off the page and inhabit the imagination of whoever has opened herself to them." MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M837be 1988
    Beloved : a novel / by Toni Morrison. New York : Plume, 1988.

    Internet sites about Beloved

    813.54 M837p.....Paradise

    Toni Morrison
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M837j
    Morrison, Toni. Jazz / Toni Morrison. 1st trade ed. New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1992.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M837c
    Morrison, Toni. Conversations with Toni Morrison / edited by Danille Taylor-Guthrie. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, c1994.

    MAIN COLLECTION 347.7326 T36r
    Race-ing justice, en-gendering power : essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the construction of social reality / edited and with an introduction by Toni Morrison. 1st ed. New York : Pantheon Books, 1992.

    Terry McMillan
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M2281h
    McMillan, Terry. How Stella got her groove back / Terry McMillan. New York : Viking, 1996.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M2281w
    McMillan, Terry. Waiting to exhale / Terry McMillan. New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Pocket Books, 1993, c1992.

    Terry McMillan goes to Hollywood

    James Alan McPherson
    MAIN COLLECTION 385.0973 M24r McPherson, James Alan, 1943- Railroad : trains and train people in American culture / edited by James Alan McPherson, Miller Williams. New York : Random House, c1976.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M242e
    McPherson, James Alan, 1943- Elbow room : stories / by James Alan McPherson. Boston : Little, Brown, c1977.

    Walter Mosley
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 M853l
    Mosley, Walter. A little yellow dog / by Walter Mosley. New York : Norton, 1996.

    Jess Mowry
    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic Mow
    Babylon boyz / Jess Mowry. 1st ed. New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, c1997.
    Inner-city teenagers find a suitcase full of cocaine and must decide whether to sell it and take the opportunities the money would provide or to destroy it to keep the drug from poisoning their community.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic Mow
    Ghost train / by Jess Mowry. 1st ed. New York : H. Holt, 1996.
    Thirteen-year-old Remi, who has just moved to California from Haiti, and his neighbor Niya travel back in time to solve the mystery of the night train.

    Check the online catalog for other books by this author

    Web site with more info

    Gloria Naylor
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 N23b
    Naylor, Gloria. Bailey's Cafe / Gloria Naylor. 1st Vintage contemporaries ed. New York : Vintage Books, 1993.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 N23m 1993
    Mama Day / Gloria Naylor. Vintage contemporaries ed. New York : Vintage Books, 1993.

    Reading Guide to Mama Day

    Unofficial Gloria Naylor Home Page

    Barbara Neely
    Mystery writer--main character is a domestic worker, Blanche. First novel is Blanche on the Lam set in North Carolina.

    Gordon Parks
    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) B Par
    Parks, Gordon, 1912- Voices in the mirror : an autobiography / Gordon Parks. 1st Anchor Books ed. New York : Anchor Books, 1992.

    MAIN COLLECTION 779 P236p
    Parks, Gordon, 1912- A poet and his camera. Pref.: Stephen Spender. Introd.: Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr. New York, Viking Press [1968]

    Gordon Parks

    Ann Petry MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 P449s 1985
    The street / Ann Petry. Boston : Beacon Press, 1985, c1974.

    Written in 1946, one of the first novels by an African American woman to receive broad critical recognition and acclaim. Sold over 1,000,000 copies.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 P449n
    Petry, Ann (Lane) 1911- The Narrows. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1953.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 P449c
    Petry, Ann (Lane) Country place. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1947

    More info about Ann Petry

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 P449Z H71
    Ann Petry / Hilary Holladay. New York : Twayne Publishers ; London : Prentice Hall International, c1996.

    Ishmael Reed
    MAIN COLLECTION 814.54 R25w
    Reed, Ishmael, 1938- Writin' is fightin' : thirty-seven years of boxing on paper / Ishmael Reed. New York : Atheneum, 1988.

    MAIN COLLECTION 814.54 R25s
    Reed, Ishmael, 1938- Shrovetide in old New Orleans / Ishmael Reed 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1978.

    Interview with Ishmael Reed

    Paul Robeson
    MAIN COLLECTION 325.26 R54h
    Robeson, Paul, 1898-1976. Here I stand. With a pref. by Lloyd L. Brown. Boston, Beacon Press [1971, c1958]

    Black-listed during the McCarthy era, he wrote this memoir as an answer to his accusers.

    Paul Robeson Centennial Celebration

    Dori Sanders
    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic San
    Clover : a novel / by Dori Sanders. Chapel Hill, N.C. : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1990.

    After her father dies within hours of being married to a white woman, a ten-year-old black girl learns with her new mother to overcome grief and to adjust to a new place in their rural black South Carolina community.

    A Sense of Place in Dori Sander's Clover

    April Sinclair
    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic Sin
    Sinclair, April. Coffee will make you black / April Sinclair. 1st ed. New York : Hyperion, c1994.

    Pamela Thomas-Graham First time novelist--writes a mystery with an academic setting.A Darker Side of Crimson

    Jean Toomer
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.52 T61c
    Toomer, Jean, 1894-1967. The collected poems of Jean Toomer / edited by Robert B. Jones and Margery Toomer Latimer ; with an introduction and textual notes by Robert B. Jones. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c1988.

    Jean Toomer Page

    Henry Van Dyke
    MAIN COLLECTION 811 V28w
    Van Dyke, Henry, 1852-1933. The white bees, and other poems, by Henry Van Dyke. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1909.

    Alice Walker
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 W151c 1983
    Walker, Alice, 1944- The color purple / Alice Walker. New York : Washington Square Press, 1983, c1982. (New York : Pocket Books)

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 W151t 1990
    Walker, Alice, 1944- The temple of my familiar / Alice Walker. New York : Pocket Books, 1990, c1989.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 W151p
    Walker, Alice, 1944- Possessing the secret of joy / Alice Walker. 1st ed. New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, c1992.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 W151s
    Walker, Alice, 1944- The same river twice : honoring the difficult : a meditation on life, spirit, art, and the making of the film, color purple, ten years later / Alice Walker. New York : Scribner, c1996.

    Alice Walker Web Page

    "I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for?" --Alice Walker

    Dorothy West
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 W521
    West, Dorothy, 1909- The living is easy. New York, Arno Press, 1969.

    More information about Dorothy West

    John Edgar Wideman
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 W632f
    Wideman, John Edgar. Fever : twelve stories / John Edgar Wideman. 1st ed. New York : H. Holt, c1989.

    Valerie Wilson-Wesley
    Read about the Tamara Hayle Mystery series--Tamara Hayle, that wise and witty Newark single mom who makes her living as a private investigator.--

    Charles Stevenson Wright
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 W932m
    Wright, Charles Stevenson, 1932- The messenger / Charles Wright. New York : Farrar, Straus, c1963.

    Richard Wright
    MAIN COLLECTION 928.1 W93b 1969
    Black boy; a record of childhood and youth. New York, Harper & Row 1969 c1945

    Richard Wright.Resources

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 W93n 1993
    MAIN/Reserves 813.52W93n Native son and How "Bigger" was born / Richard Wright; with an introduction by Arnold Rampersad. 1st HarperPerennial ed. New York, NY : HarperPerennial, 1993.

    "It is my contention that a really great novel is made with a knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal fortitude to cut out even the most brilliant passage so long as it doesn't advance the store." ---Frank Yerby Frank Yerby
    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 Y44f
    Yerby, Frank, 1916- The foxes of Harrow. New York, Dial Press [1946]

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.52 Y44e
    Yerby, Frank, 1916- Floodtide. N.Y., Dial Press, 1950.

    excerpt from Griffin's Way

    Al Young
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 Y83b
    Young, Al, 1939- The blues don't change : new and selected poems / by Al Young. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 1982.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 Y83s
    Young, Al, 1939- Snakes; a novel. [1st ed.] New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston [1970]

    Short stories, collections, anthologies, etc.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.08 C89
    Caroling dusk; an anthology of verse by negro poets, edited by Countee Cullen; decorations by Aaron Douglas. New York, London, Harper & brothers, 1927.

    MAIN COLLECTION 820.99287 M85n
    Motherlands : Black women's writing from Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia / Susheila Nasta, editor. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 1992.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.01 C43 1995
    Children of the night : the best short stories by Black writers, 1967 to the present / edited by Gloria Naylor 1st ed. Boston : Little, Brown and Co., c1995.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.508 G16m
    The garden thrives : twentieth-century African-American poetry / edited and with an introduction by Clarence Major. 1st ed. New York : HarperPerennial, c1996.

    Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro. A Hypermedia Edition of the March 1925 Survey Graphic Harlem Number.

    MAIN COLLECTION 305.8 Sk33g
    Skin deep : Black women & White women write about race / edited by Marita Golden and Susan Richards Shreve. 1st ed. New York : Nan A. Talese, 1995.

    MAIN COLLECTION 813.0872 Sp6w
    Spooks, spies, and private eyes : Black mystery, crime, and suspense fiction / edited by Paula L. Woods. 1st ed. New York : Doubleday, 1995.

    Holiday Books in MTSU Library

    MTSU Library Main Collection 641.59296 M46e
    Ideas for Entertaining from the African-American Kitchen by Angela Shelf Medearis, c1997.

    MTSU Library MAIN COLLECTION 813.4 C64b
    Bypaths in Dixie; folk tales of the South. With an introd. by Harry Stillwell Edwards. The Black heritage library collection Mister Tall Pine's Christmas tree.

    Children's Books

    MTSU Library LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 975 McK
    McKissack, Pat, 1944- Christmas in the big house, Christmas in the quarters / by Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick L. McKissack ; illustrated by John Thompson. New York : Scholastic, c1994. Describes the customs, recipes, poems, and songs used to celebrate Christmas in the big plantation houses and in the slave quarters just before the Civil War.

    MTSU Library LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic Ham
    The bells of Christmas / Virginia Hamilton ; illustrations by Lambert Davis. Twelve-year-old Jason describes the wonderful Christmas of 1890 that he and his family celebrate in their home in Springfield, Ohio.

    MTSU Library LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) E Hea
    Sofie's role / story by Amy Heath ; pictures by Sheila Hamanaka. On the day before Christmas, Sofie makes her big debut serving customers in her family's busy Broadway Bakery. Includes recipes on lining papers.

    MTSU Library LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) E Cli
    Everett Anderson's Christmas coming / Lucille Clifton ; illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. Relates, in verse, the excitement and joy of a young boy anticipating as well as celebrating Christmas in the city.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic McK
    The dark-thirty : Southern tales of the supernatural / Patricia C. McKissack ; illustrated by Brian Pinkney. New York : Scholastic Inc., c1992, (1993 printing). A collection of ghost stories with African American themes, designed to be told during the Dark Thirty--the half hour before sunset--when ghosts seem all too believable.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 398.25 Has
    The headless haunt and other African-American ghost stories / collected and retold by James Haskins ; illustrated by Ben Otero. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c1994.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic Sma Jenny Reen and the Jack Muh Lantern / written by Irene Smalls ; illustrated by Keinyo White. 1st ed. New York : Atheneum ;Books for Young Readers, 1996. Sister Louisa, who cares for Jenny Reen while her parents work in the field, warns the young slave girl about a monster, known from long-told tales, who comes out on Halloween.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) Fic Ham Willie Bea and the time the Martians landed / Virginia Hamilton. 1st ed. New York : Greenwillow Books, c1983. In October of 1938, on their farm homestead in Ohio, a black family is caught up in the fear generated by the Orson Welles "Martians have landed" broadcast.

    What's New at MTSU

    MAIN COLLECTION 297.87 F24 Al25 The Farrakhan factor : African-American writers on leadership, nationhood, and minister Louis Farrakhan / edited by Amy Alexander. 1st ed. New York : Grove Press, c1998.

    Financial Aid for African Americans, 1997-1999 by Gail Schlachter and R. David Weber. REFERENCE AREA

    Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by Angela Davis. 782.42 D293b
    An examination of the work of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday.

    Spirited Minds,edited by Archie Givens. 810.8 Spr1g
    Over one hundred descriptions of books for readers of all ages that celebrate the African-American male experience--and the people that teach them and love them. A guide to books that will foster pride and a desire to learn.

    Ideas for Entertaining from the African-American Kitchen by Angela Shelf Medearis, c1997. 641.59296 M46e



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