By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm Reviews
To honor Black History Month, I have compiled a list of the best literature to recommend for readers to celebrate the legacy of African-American authors and their protagonists many of whom questioned society's restrictions towards them based on class, gender, sexuality, and of course race. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes not so much. But they definitely got Reader's attention and got them talking.
Now for this list I have included one YA novel, one play, and 8 novels. There were some requirements. The most important was that they all had to be written by black authors. They also had to feature a black protagonist. I have nothing against To Kill a Mockingbird or The Adventures of/ Huckleberry Finn. Both are wonderful books that deal with racial issues. However, they are both written by white authors and are told primarily through white characters. There is a huge difference between being an observer of such issues and being a participant and these books, I feel explore those internal struggles better than Mockingbird or Huckleberry do.
You will also noticed two books are left out, even though they are written by African-American women and are personal favorites of mine: The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Beloved by Toni Morrison. Those are two of my all-time favorite novels and I highly recommend them, but I reviewed them quite a bit last year and wanted to read other works by Morrison and Walker. (Both have books that are on this list). However, I would be remiss if I did not recommend them to any potential Readers. If you never have, read them. They are brilliant books with strong female protagonists and deal with racial and gender themes in brilliant ways that explore the solidarity of women and community.
If you know of any others that I miss, please let me know here or on Facebook and as always spoilers may follow.
10. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
While Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a YA novel, it has as much to say about the struggles of African-Americans as books with protagonists twice the age of its 9 year old lead character, Cassie Logan.
The segregated Depression era Southern setting is stark, uncomfortable, and unfortunately very real. There are many moments throughout the book that take an unflinching look at the racism that the Logan family encounters, particularly in passages such as when a young white girl and her father throw Cassie on the road and make her call the girl "miss" after Cassie accidentally bumps into her.
Luckily, Cassie is written as a very strong-willed character and gets even with the girl in a very epic manner. There are also moments that show how demeaning the lives of many blacks in the South were such as their school being further from their home than the school for white children and that they have to use older dated textbooks much to their teacher/mother's dismay.
The violent passages such as showing a victim of being tarred and feathered and another who had been burned are disturbing and unforgettable. They show the true impact of racism and how it affects everyone that surrounds them. The ending is purposely left ambiguous as the racist climate will continue to effect the Logan family for generations to come.
9. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
When people attend church services, they never know what goes on in the minds of their fellow church goers, the people who sit in the pews across from them, the choir members, even the pastor. James Baldwin takes an inside look into the minds of an African-American church going family and reveals that all is not sainted nor holy inside. This is a world that Baldwin knew a great deal about since he was the stepson of a Hell Fire and Brimstone pastor and the book is a semi-autobiographical account of his internal struggles between his religion and his homosexuality. The book is filled with religious imagery of Salvation and stories like that of Moses leading his people out of the wilderness (comparing African-Americans to stand against their white oppressors).
John Grimes is the stepson of Rev. Gabriel Grimes, pastor of the storefront Pentecostal Temple of the Fire Baptized. He listens to his stepfather's sermon with a mixture of hatred for his stepfather's abusive nature and desire to win his affections. As the short novel continues, we get not only into John's thoughts but those of his stepfather, mother, and aunt.
Each person in his family is revealed to have a secret that they do not reveal to anyone but themselves which the Narration implies are their sins that they have kept concealed. John's mother, Elizabeth still mourns the loss of his birth father, Richard who killed himself before John was born and married Gabriel more for protection and security than any love. Gabriel, himself, is filled with judgment over his family, parishioners, and the world around him. (He beats his younger son with a belt after the boy had been stabbed.) However he recalls his late first wife, Deborah and mistress, Esther with whom he fathered a child. Gabriel's sister, Florence, also knows about Esther and the child and has been keeping a letter as proof to reveal to Gabriel when the "time is right." In telling the stories of the three Grimes adults and their pasts, Baldwin dares the Readers to see them as deeply flawed human beings who alternate between wanting God's love and fearing God's wrath because of their secrets.
John himself goes through and awakening that is equally spiritual and sexual. He believes that he is filled with the Holy Spirit and sees images of God in some beautiful evocative description. However he is filled with an earthly desire for a fellow male parishioner, Elisha. The inner spiritual warfare between John's quest for religions salvation and his homosexual desire is deeply felt as he feels he cannot come to terms with both, The ending is left purposely ambiguous over which side John chooses. (Though since he is based on Baldwin who wrote other books about his sexuality and criticisms of religion, indicates this is the way John will choose as well.)
8. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
The title of Lorraine Hansberry's moving Tony nominated play comes from a line in Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem (Dream Deferred)" asking "What happens to a dream deferred/Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" Her play shows the effects of a dream deferred on an African-American family as they receive their husband and father's life insurance policy.
Each one has different ideas on what to do with it. For Walter Lee Younger, this means he can open up a liquor store with his street-smart friends. For his younger sister, Beneatha, she can continue her education in medical school. Their mother, Lena, wants to buy a house in a white neighborhood.
The conflicts within the family are realistic and tense as the Youngers find their individual paths with the money. Walter Lee's friends abscond with the money leaving him a broken man. Beneatha is torn between two completely different men, one an educated snob and the other who encourages her to embrace her African heritage.
In one memorable scene, a white member of the housing committee visits the Youngers to offer them money not to move to the neighborhood "for their own good and safety" only to receive the brush off by Lena. Walter Lee vows to be a better man by saying that the Youngers are proud of who they are and will be good neighbors. This final scene shows that the Youngers don't know whether they will face racism and tension in their new neighborhood but they will face it together.
7. The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
Naylor's novel told in seven short stories tells of the relationships between seven African-American women and how they try to aid each other.
The women are originally written and stand out in their stories. There's Mattie Michael, who acts as den mother to the other women but has her own history of worrying about a son who is on the run from the law. Etta Mae Johnson is an older but feisty woman who doesn't mind dating men half her age. Kiswana Browne, a young woman from a wealthy family who embraces the "Back to Africa" movement and the lower class Brewster Place much to her mother's dismay. Luciella Louise Turner wants to keep her no-good boyfriend in her life to the point of injuring herself. Cora Lee is a single mother of a mob of unruly children who could learn some discipline (and so could she). Lorraine and Therese are a lesbian couple who move to Brewster Place to seek acceptance but instead get the worst kind of bigotry possible. In their stories, Naylor characterizes each woman with her strengths, frailties, and individuality making them fascinating characters.
Besides their individuality, Naylor also explores their connections to each other and how each woman reaches out to the others for friendship, understanding, and maybe a chance to change her life for the better. When Mattie is on the run from her abusive father, she is taken in by Luciella's grandmother. Mattie then returns the favor by helping Luciella through her crises with her boyfriend. Etta Mae stands up for Lorraine and Therese when a nosey neighbor judges them in a meeting. Kiswana invites Cora Lee's children to a street performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream which inspires one of the kids to become a writer.
The connections bring the women together as a whole. This is particularly meaningful in the final chapters when it is revealed that the characters moved on and Brewster Place got swallowed up and gerrymandered into other names. Even though Brewster Place is gone, Naylor's characters still have their memories of community.
6. Native Son by Richard Wright
Bigger Thomas is one of many protagonists like Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov: a protagonist who commits murder but instead of judging or censoring him, the writing goes into the societal implications. What causes a man like Raskolnikov or Bigger Thomas to commit a crime? In the case of Bigger, his author Richard Wright asks the question of how much race plays a part in Bigger's crime, his cover up of the crime, his arrest, and trial.
Until he accidentally murders wealthy white Mary Dalton, Bigger could never articulate what he feels. He feels isolated because of the prejudice from white society and trapped by the needs of his impoverished family. He works as a chauffeur for the Dalton family but feels condescended and mocked by their acts of kindness particularly from Mary who is an active member of the Communist party with her boyfriend, Jan. Since he had never felt anything but fear, hatred, and derision from white people, he feels the same for them. He acts subservient and says "yesum", taking them wherever they want, while gritting his teeth inside. One night after a drunken encounter with Mary and Jan, Bigger brings Mary upstairs and accidentally suffocates her.
The passages following the murder are Poe-esque as Bigger recruits his girlfriend, Bessie, to write a ransom note signed by the local Communist party in an attempt to frame Jan for the murder. It is spine-tingling and somewhat gruesomely entertaining as Bigger plays on the white characters' prejudices by feigning ignorance so they would believe that he was not clever enough to commit the murder. He feels confident enough to stay ahead of the police until he is unable to collect the ransom money to leave town and he kills Bessie in another moment of panic eventually leading to his pursuit and capture. (In pages that are all-too-real in these days of media exploitation of crimes particularly ones that fall in "Missing White Woman Syndrome" categories, Bigger is charged for Mary's death but very little mention is made towards Bessie's.)
The final third of Native Son deals with Bigger's trial and the words of his defense attorney, Boris Max who lays out the themes for the jury and the Reader to learn. While Max's speech is long, it is gripping as it challenges that Bigger's fear and hatred towards white people, and accidental murder of Mary was a learned trait: brought on by white society's fear and hatred of him. The writing suggests that Bigger Thomas was not born, he was made. That we all created Bigger Thomas and all of the Bigger Thomases before and since.
5. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Invisible Man is a deeply analytical and thought-provoking novel about an unnamed African-American man who must face his metaphoric invisibility as a victim of racism, social conflict, and the judgments and prejudices of others.
From the unforgettable first chapter where the Narrator is made to participate in a grueling Battle Royale for the amusement of white patrons, he discovers that he is used and betrayed by the people around him. It's heartbreaking as he goes throughout his life manipulated and made a fool of by people around him. Even when he obtains some success such as at an all-black college, eventually his happiness collapses such as when he is expelled after taking one of the founders on a detour of the seedier side of town (thought it was at the request of the founder and not his idea).
The Narrator spends a great deal of time with a group known as the Brotherhood, an organization that seems a composite of socialist/anarchists. He gains some success as a spokesperson on their behalf in Harlem. But disillusionment sets in when another African-American member of the Brotherhood is shot while trying to resist arrest and the Narrator makes a stirring speech on the rights of African-Americans (much to the Brotherhood's objection). Disillusionment turns to hatred when riots start in Harlem and the Narrator realizes that was the Brotherhood's plan all along.
The strongest statement in the book is made when the Invisible Man decides to no longer be invisible, to speak and fight for himself. He ends the book provocatively by daring the Reader to confront their own invisibility by saying "Who knows but that on the lower frequencies, I speak for you."
4. Kindred by Octavia Butler
You can never know what the past is like unless you've actually been there. Edana "Dana" Franklin learns that lesson as she travels back and forth between her 1976 home with her Caucasian husband, Kevin and the antebellum South where she is mistaken and treated like a slave.
Dana suffers frequent dizzy spells and when she recovers from them, she finds herself in the presence of Rufus Weylin, the son of a plantation owner and is later revealed to be Dana's ancestor. Each time that Dana arrives, it is to help Rufus out of some difficulty. Once it is to save him from drowning, another time, she finds him drunk in an alley and so on. The multiple times of saving Rufus' life does not endear her in the eyes of his parents who have her whipped, and especially Rufus' father who gives Dana very uncomfortable stares. She also encounters Rufus' future mistress, a free black woman, Alice whom Dana is determined to protect until she gives birth to Alice and Rufus' daughter, Hagar.
Dana is a very well developed character as she goes from the past to the present and her interactions with others. Her relationship with Rufus for example is one of concern mixed with hatred. He alternates between needing Dana as a mother figure and seeing her as property. She is also held under suspicion by the black characters particularly Alice, who at first refused to be Rufus' concubine and instead wants to run away with her husband. Alice's husband, Isaac is beaten and sold sending Alice reluctantly into Rufus' protection. Then there's Kevin, Dana's modern-day husband who at first is very condescending not believing her time travel stories until he encounters them himself.
One of the themes that plays into the narrative is the idea of home. The further Dana goes in time, the longer she stays there. In the first chapter, she is only in the past for a few hours and returns after a few seconds. Later she spends months in the past and is gone for hours. The longest time between the past and present belongs not to Dana, but to her husband Kevin. Even though he's gone for eight days (and can only return when Dana goes back to the past to retrieve him), for Kevin he has been in the past for five years: long enough for him to travel to the North and become an abolitionist/teacher. Each time Kevin and Dana return to the present, they have momentary culture shock from the modern conveniences and question their lives in the present and their marriage. (Dana worries that with Kevin in the past, his thoughts may conform to those of the white men he encounters. When he returns at first she's skeptical with whether he became an abolitionist, which he tells her of course he did.) When they travel between time, they aren't sure where their home actually is and still suffer from the memories of the past. This is revealed in the end when Dana is injured in the past and the injury carries over to her return. A part of her will always be in the past scarred by her experience as a slave.
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Hurston's brilliant short novel is about a woman who discovers herself and her own strength from her marriages to three different men.
Janie Crawford begins life unsure of herself even her own skin (She recalls having a picture taken with white children and confused that she couldn't see herself not knowing that she was different from the other children inspiring their mockery at her naivete). As Janie grows that insecurity manifests in her relationships with men as her grandmother arranges her first marriage to an older man, Logan Killick.
Janie's marriage to Logan doesn't last long as she's tired of being a drudge and playing second fiddle to Logan's late first wife. She divorces him and marries Jody Starks, a charming drifter who becomes mayor of a small town. At first her life as First Lady of Jody's town of Green Cove Springs is pleasant, but Jody verbally abuses her and forces the townspeople to do hard physical labor. Janie endures her unhappy marriage for 20 years until as Jody is dying she curses him with all the hurt he gave her over the years.
At age 40, Janie marries her third husband Vergible Woods AKA Tea Cake, a much younger man. Recognizing her own sexual desires, Janie elopes with Tea Cake to the Everglades. It is in her marriage to Tea Cake that Janie is able to find the strength to stand up as an independent woman and no longer take the abuse that the men in her life have given her.
2. Sula by Toni Morrison
Sula tells the story of two women who on the surface appear to be polar opposites, but they are revealed to be very similar.
Nel and Sula grow up in the town of Bottom, Ohio and have very different backgrounds. Nel's family is very rigid conservative home that is only livened by her occasional visits to her maternal grandmother, Rochelle, a prostitute. Sula lives in a boarding house with her mother and grandmother neither of which were married when they had their children and a regular stream of male boarders including three men they call "the deweys."
As they age, their paths continue to diverge as Nel marries young and has children and Sula leaves town only to return with a bad reputation of having many men. Nel welcomes her friend-that is until Sula runs off with her husband causing Nel to reevaluate her friendship with Sula.
At first Sula seems like the bad girl and Nel seems like the good girl, but Morrison's excellent writing makes their lines not so defined. This is exemplified in a passage in which Sula accidentally kills a neighbor boy. While Nel blames Sula solely for the tragedy, Sula's elderly grandmother reminds Nel that she watched it happen and did nothing to stop it nor did she tell anyone about it, so Nel was just as much to blame as Sula. Nel also realizes that she was as much to blame in the decline of her marriage as Sula. Morrison shows that there is bad and good within everyone and sometimes those who pass judgment on those who do wrong are just as capable of it themselves.
1. The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker
We carry our personal history and the history of our people with us is the main theme of Alice Walker's multi-narrative epic novel The Temple of My Familiar. This novel tells the story of a group of people who are interwoven by their current links to each other and their past histories which tell of many generations of oppression, conflict, struggles, and migration.
The Temple of My Familiar has a large cast many of whom are connected in unusual ways. There is Carlotta, a beautiful Latin American woman whose flamboyant rocker husband, Arveyda ran off with her mother, Zede. Carlotta is also having an affair with Suwelo, a college professor who is in a troubled marriage with his wife, Fanny whose grandmother is none other than Celie, the protagonist of Walker's The Color Purple (I couldn't get too far away from this book.) Suwelo becomes close friends with an older couple, Hal and Miss Lissie who give him information not only about his past but the history of his people.
Each of the characters relates their stories in various chapters. There is no fluid plot so much as it is a series of interconnected stories about each person's past and their heritage. Zede's story for example tells of her history of fleeing a tempestuous political climate to America and then her return to rediscover her roots as well as her artistry in "sewing magic" which she inherited. While she tells her story, Arveyda also recounts his troubled relationship with his parents and his own questions towards his lineage particularly his fascination with his Native American roots. Fanny and her mother, Olivia tell of their relationship with Celie and Olivia's "other mother", Shug Avery that had been built on the former's abuse from her husband. (A horrible incident between Celie and a dog suggests that the abuse may not have been as far from Celie's mind as she thought).
By far the most interesting storyteller is the most fascinating character in the bunch: Miss Lissie. Lissie possesses an almost goddess-like presence as she recalls all of her former lives with a strong recall that goes beyond time and place. She captivates Suwelo, and The Reader with her memories of the distant past of her lives-mostly as black women, but sometimes as white men, and once as a lioness with aplomb. She recalls her past life in pre-historic Africa during the creation of fire all the way to slavery times mirroring the experiences of the African people and their eventual connections to America. They are particularly strong in their spiritual feelings of the early Goddess worship and the concept of a Mother Land.
Lissie compares the early idyllic life of a matriarchal society that worshiped a Goddess and its transformation to a war-like patriarchal society to a monster. This comparison is made stronger when she compares slavery to a Gorgon (Medusa) and the rebellion of the slaves against their masters as the fury of a dark vengeance seeking Goddess. This comparison implies the Goddess who had been turned over has finally sought her revenge against those who overpowered her and that she will always protect her children no matter where they are.
Lissie's memories inspire Suwelo to look at his life more closely and to reconcile with Fanny causing further reconciliations between Carlotta, Arveyda, and Zede. As Walker's characters learn from their pasts, they form a circle that connects them to a shared history not only theirs but a shared history of all people.
Honorable Mention:
Novels: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Dear America: I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly: The Diary of Patsy, A Freed Girl by Joyce Hanson, Bud, Not Buddy and The Watsons Go To Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, A Visitation of Spirits by Randall Kenan, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, White Teeth and Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Non-Fiction: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, And Arn't I A Woman by Sojourner Truth, The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley, Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley, Letter From Birmingham Jail, I Have a Dream, and Other Writings by Martin Luther King Jr., On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madame C.J. Walker by A'leila Bundles, Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of The Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterley, Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges, We Were 8 Years in Poweer by Na-Hishi Coates, Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Plays: Fences and The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Notzake Shange, Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 by Anna Deavere Smith, The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe
Poems and Short Story Authors: Phyllis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, Maya Angelou, bell hooks, Rita Dove, Dudley Randall, Elizabeth Alexander, June Jordan, Quincy Troupe, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde
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