I Put A Spell on You by Nina Simone

“To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that’s not what I play. I play black classical music.”

— Nina Simone

Get I Put A Spell On You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone

from wikipedia:

Nina Simone (born Eunice Kathleen Waymon; February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was anAmerican singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, andcivil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. She worked in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

Ready for Revoltion by Stokely Carmichael

“There is a higher law than the law of government. That’s the law of conscience.”

— Stokely Carmichael

Get Ready for Revolution by Stokely Carmichael and Stokely: A Life by Peniel E. Joseph

Kwame Touré, once known as Stokely Carmichael(June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998), was a Trinidadian-American activist active in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and later, the global Pan-African movement. Growing up in the United States from the age of eleven, he graduated from Howard University. He rose to prominence in the civil rights and Black Power movements, first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party, and finally as a leader of the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party.[1]

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”

— Lucille Clifton

Get The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton

from Wikipedia:
Lucille Clifton (June 27, 1936, Depew, New York – February 13, 2010,Baltimore, Maryland)[1] was an American poet, writer, and educator fromBuffalo, New York.[2][3][4] From 1979 to 1985 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland. Frequent topics in her poetry include the celebration of her African-American heritage, women's experience, and the female body.

She was also nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier

“Okay listen, you think I’m so inconsequential? Then try this on for size. All those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given thereby to denying me value - to you I say, I’m not talking about being AS GOOD as you. I hereby declare myself BETTER than you. ”

— Sidney Poitier

Get Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier

from wikipedia:

Sir Sidney Poitier is a Bahamian-American actor, film director, author and diplomat.

Directed by Desire by June Jordan

“And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea:

we are the ones we have been waiting for.”

— June Jordan

Get Directed by Desire by June Jordan

from Poetry Foundation:

"One of the most widely-published and highly-acclaimed African American writers of her generation, poet, playwright and essayist June Jordan was also known for her fierce commitment to human rights and progressive political agenda. Over a career that produced twenty-seven volumes of poems, essays, libretti, and work for children, Jordan engaged the fundamental struggles of her era: over civil rights, women’s rights, and sexual freedom."

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

“The brightest memory fades faster than the dullest ink.”

— Claudia Rankine

Get Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankin

from wikipedia:

Claudia Rankine is a Jamaican poet and playwright born in 1963 and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and New York City. She has taught at Case Western Reserve University, Barnard College, University of Georgia, and in the writing program at the University of Houston. As of 2011, Rankine is the Henry G. Lee Professor of Poetry at Pomona College.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. ”

— James Baldwin

Get The Fire Next TIme by James Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century America, and their inevitable if unnameable tensions.[1]Some Baldwin essays are book-length, for instance The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), andThe Devil Finds Work (1976).

Selected Poems of Gwendolyn Brooks

“What, what am I to do with all of this life?”

— Gwendolyn Brooks

Get Selected Poems of Gwendolyn Brooks

Read POTD - Kithenette Building by Gwendolyn Brooks

from wikipedia:

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an African-American poet. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950 and was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.

S O S: Poems 1961-2013 by Amiri Baraka

“There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.”

— Amiri Baraka

Get SOS: Poems 1961-2013 by Amiri Baraka

from wikipedia:

Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), formerly known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka,[1] was an African-American writer of poetry,drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and theState University of New York at Stony Brook. He received thePEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone.

Push by Sapphire

“… but you cant get all hung up on details when you are trying to survive…”

— Sapphire

Get Push by Sapphire

Ramona Lofton (born August 4, 1950), better known by her pen nameSapphire, is an American author and performance poet.

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

“When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.”

— Frantz Fanon

Get The Wretched Earth by Frantz Fanon

from wikipedia:

Frantz Omar Fanon (20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a Martinique-born Afro-French psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and writer whose works are influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and post-Marxism. As an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, and an existentialist humanist concerned with thepsychopathology of colonization, and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

“There is no end
To what a living world
Will demand of you.”

— Octavia E. Butler

Get Kindred by Octavia E. Butler 

Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer. A multiple-recipient of both the Hugoand Nebula awards, Butler was one of the best-known women in the field. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive theMacArthur Fellowship, nicknamed the Genius Grant.

The Michael Eric Dyson Reader

“Charity is no substitute for justice. If we never challenge a social order that allows some to accumulate wealth—even if they decide to help the less fortunate—while others are short-changed, then even acts of kindness end up supporting unjust arrangements. We must never ignore the injustices that make charity necessary, or the inequalities that make it possible.”

— Michael Eric Dyson

Get The Michael Eric Dyson Reader

from wikipedia:

Michael Eric Dyson (born October 23, 1958) is an American academic, author, and radio host. He is a professor of sociology at Georgetown University. Described by Michael A. Fletcher as "a Princeton PhD and a child of the streets who takes pains never to separate the two". Dyson has authored and edited 18 books dealing with subjects such as Malcolm X;Martin Luther King, Jr.; Marvin Gaye; Nas's debut albumIllmatic; Bill Cosby; Tupac Shakur; and Hurricane Katrina.

The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

“We love because it’s the only true adventure.”

— Nikki Giovanni

Get The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

from wikipedia:

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. (born June 7, 1943) is an American writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal, the NAACP Image Award, and has been nominated for a Grammy Award,for her Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she has recently been named as one of Oprah Winfrey’s twenty- five “Living Legends.” 

Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

“Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”

— Malcolm X

Get The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

from wikipedia:

Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an African-American Muslim minister and a human rights activist.

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

“Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.”

— Edwidge Danticat

Get Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

from wikipedia:

Edwidge Danticat (Haitian Creole pronunciation: [ɛdwidʒ dãtika]; born January 19, 1969) is a Haitian-American author.

Collected Poems of Audre Lorde

“We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings.”

— Audre Lorde

from wikipedia:

Audre Lorde; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde, February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was a Caribbean-American writer, radical feminist, womanist, lesbian, and civil rights activist. Lorde served as an inspiration to women worldwide, one of her most notable efforts being her activist work with Afro-German women in the 1980s. Her identity as a black lesbian gave her work a novel perspective and put her in a unique position to speak on issues surrounding civil rights, feminism, and oppression. Her work gained both wide acclaim and wide criticism, due to the elements of social liberalism and sexuality presented in her work and her emphasis on revolution and change.[1] She died of breast cancer in 1992, at the age of 58.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

— Zora Neale Hurston

Get Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

From wikipedia:

Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

In addition to new editions of her work being published after a revival of interest in her in 1975, her manuscript Every Tongue Got to Confess (2001), a collection of folktales gathered in the 1920s, was published posthumously after being discovered in the Smithsonian archives.

The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois - Black History Month Reading List

“Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.”

— W.E.B. Du Bois

Get The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois

From wikipedia:

William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (pronounced /duːˈbɔɪz/ doo-boyz; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.