Works

Whiteness and the literary imagination — Morrison's 1992 Massey Lectures, the central African American literary-critical analysis of the canonical American literature

African American literary-political essay 1

#1074 · 1955

Notes of a Native Son (Mid-mature)

Baldwin's founding essay collection — title essay on his father, "Stranger in the Village," Paris pieces

African American literature 1

#1073 · 1953

Go Tell It on the Mountain (Early)

Baldwin's semi-autobiographical first novel — Harlem Pentecostal-Christian boyhood

African American literature / mid-twentieth-century LGBT literature 1

#1075 · 1956

Giovanni's Room (Mid-mature)

Baldwin's 1956 Paris novel of male homosexual love — major founding text of post-war LGBT literature

African American literature / modernist fiction 1

#331 · 1987

Beloved (Mid (the Pulitzer-winning major novel))

#966 · 1993 (Beacon Press; 25th anniversary edition 2017)

Sethe and the ghost of her daughter — Morrison's 1987 novel of slavery, memory, and what cannot be forgotten

African American prophetic-Christian tradition / contemporary cultural criticism 1

#968 · 2004 (Penguin)

Democracy Matters (Late-mature (the post-9/11 sequel to the 1993 Race Matters))

Cornel West

American democracy faces three dogmas — free-market fundamentalism, aggressive militarism, and escalating authoritarianism — and democratic renewal requires confronting each

African American prophetic-Christian tradition / late twentieth-century cultural criticism 1

Race Matters (Mature (the book that established West as a major public intellectual))

Cornel West

Race matters in America — and the failure to address race as a structural condition rather than a personal attitude has kept American democracy from its promise

African American social thought 1

#620 · 1903

The Souls of Black Folk (Mid)

W.E.B. Du Bois

Du Bois's 1903 foundational text — double consciousness, the veil, the Talented Tenth

African American speculative fiction / Afrofuturism 2

#1059 · 1993

Parable of the Sower (Mature)

#1060 · 1998 (Nebula 1999)

Near-future America collapsing into climate breakdown — and Lauren Olamina's Earthseed religion

Parable of the Talents (Late-mature)

Earthseed community attacked by a theocratic American president — "Make America Great Again" predating Trump by 17 years

African literary-philosophical criticism 1

#341 · 1976

Myth, Literature and the African World (Mid)

African myth and literature as the proper framework for African writing

African literary-philosophical criticism / Yoruba metaphysics 1

#1115 · 1976

Myth, Literature and the African World (Mid)

Soyinka's 1976 Cambridge lectures — Yoruba metaphysics and the proper critical reading of African literature

African political-philosophical essay / Postcolonial criticism 1

#1150 · 1996

The Open Sore of a Continent (Late)

Soyinka's 1996 political essays from exile — Abacha's Nigeria, Saro-Wiwa's execution, the unfinished work of African democracy

African political-philosophical memoir / Postcolonial autobiography 1

#1151 · 2006

You Must Set Forth at Dawn (Late)

#580 · 1969 (2nd edn 1990)

Soyinka's 2006 political memoir — half a century of Nigerian political-cultural engagement

African religious-philosophical studies 1

African Religions and Philosophy (Mid)

John S. Mbiti

Mbiti's 1969 foundational text — "I am because we are; we are because I am"

African-American essayism / mid-century US political writing 1

#1605 · 1972

No Name in the Street (Late)

#1268 · 1857 (delivered August 3, 1857, Canandaigua, NY)

Baldwin's 1972 'No Name in the Street' — late-Baldwin reflection on the close of the civil-rights era

African-American intellectual tradition / American liberal-Democratic tradition 1

#1273 · 1995

Dreams from My Father (Early)

Barack H. Obama

Obama's 1995 memoir — race, identity, and the absent Kenyan father

African-American intellectual tradition / Black-radical tradition / American abolition 1

West India Emancipation (Mid)

Frederick Douglass

Douglass's 1857 Rochester speech — proper-political-philosophical analysis of British emancipation as model for American work

African-American intellectual tradition / Black-radical tradition / American liberal tradition 1

#1267 · 1859-93 (repeatedly delivered)

Self-Made Men (Mid-Late)

Frederick Douglass

Douglass's 1859-93 lecture — repeatedly delivered analysis of the "self-made man" ideal

African-American intellectual tradition / Civil Rights Movement 4

#1306 · 1958

Stride Toward Freedom (Early)

MLK's 1958 memoir of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

#1307 · 1964

Why We Can't Wait (Mid)

MLK's 1964 account of Birmingham — includes Letter from Birmingham Jail

#1308 · 1967

Where Do We Go from Here (Late)

#1309 · 1968 (February 4)

MLK's 1967 late work — political-philosophical analysis of late Civil Rights Movement

The Drum Major Instinct (Late)

MLK's February 1968 sermon — proper-religious-political instinct for service

African-American literary tradition / 1970s US political fiction 1

#1606 · 1974

If Beale Street Could Talk (Late)

Baldwin's 1974 'If Beale Street Could Talk' — Tish's voice telling Fonny's wrongful imprisonment

African-American literary tradition / mid-century US realism 1

#1604 · 1962

Another Country (Middle)

Baldwin's 1962 'Another Country' — race, sex, and the Greenwich Village–Harlem axis

African-American literature / Black-feminist literature 2

#1102 · 1970

The Bluest Eye (Mid)

Morrison's 1970 debut — the destruction of Pecola Breedlove by internalised white-supremacist beauty standards

#1103 · 1973

Sula (Mid)

Morrison's 1973 novel of the friendship of Sula Peace and Nel Wright — the Bottom community of Medallion, Ohio

African-American literature / Magical realism 1

#1104 · 1977

Song of Solomon (Mid)

Morrison's 1977 novel — Milkman Dead, the flying African ancestor Solomon, the search for the inherited name

African-American literature / Modernist novel 1

#1105 · 1992

Jazz (Late)

Morrison's 1992 Harlem-1926 novel — jazz as form, Joe Trace and Violet, the murdered Dorcas

African-American mysticism / Christian devotion 2

#1414 · 1951

Deep Is the Hunger (Mid)

Thurman's 1951 collection of devotional meditations

#1415 · 1953

Meditations of the Heart (Mid)

Thurman's 1953 spiritual meditations — most-beloved devotional collection

African-American mysticism / philosophy of community 1

#1416 · 1971

The Search for Common Ground (Late)

Thurman's 1971 inquiry into ground of human community

African-American mysticism / spiritual autobiography 1

#1417 · 1979

With Head and Heart (Late)

Thurman's 1979 autobiography

African-Christian / Anglican ecumenical-interfaith theology 1

#1421 · 2011

God Is Not a Christian (Late)

Tutu's 2011 ecumenical-interfaith sermons

African-Christian liberation theology / Anglican prophetic theology 3

#1418 · 1982

Crying in the Wilderness (Mid)

Tutu's 1982 anti-apartheid sermons and speeches

#1419 · 1983

Hope and Suffering (Mid)

Tutu's 1983 anti-apartheid sermons and speeches

#1420 · 1994

The Rainbow People of God (Late)

Tutu's 1994 post-apartheid sermons and speeches

African-radical political tradition / Anti-apartheid struggle 3

#1279 · 1962-1990

Letters from Prison (Mid)

#1277 · 1964 (April 20, 1964)

Mandela's 1962-90 prison correspondence — major political-personal documents

Rivonia Trial Statement (Mid)

#1280 · c. 1962-2010 (materials); 2010 (compiled)

Mandela's 1964 statement from the dock — "the ideal for which I am prepared to die"

Conversations with Myself (Late)

#1278 · 1994 (May 10, 1994)

Mandela's 2010 autobiographical-political compilation — diaries, letters, drafts

African-radical political tradition / South African post-apartheid democracy 1

Inaugural Address (Late)

#1061 · 1950s-1993; collected 2005

Mandela's 1994 presidential inaugural — "Never, never and never again"

Afrofuturism 1

The Immeasurable Equation (Posthumous)

Sun Ra (Herman Poole Blount)

Collected poetic-philosophical writings — foundational text of Afrofuturism

Afrofuturist literature / Black feminist literature 4

#1334 · 1980

Wild Seed (Mid)

Butler's 1980 first volume of the Patternist series

#1335 · 1987

Dawn (Mid)

#1337 · 1995 (1st ed.), 2005 (2nd ed.)

Butler's 1987 first volume of the Xenogenesis trilogy

Bloodchild and Other Stories (Mid)

Butler's 1995 short-story collection

#1336 · 2005

Fledgling (Late)