Bold selections are new to the Second Edition.

Round bullets (•) indicate selections on the Audio Companion.

Daggers (†) indicate complete works.

The Vernacular Tradition

SPIRITUALS

1. City Called Heaven
2. I Know Moon-Rise
3. Ezekiel Saw de Wheel •
4. I’m a-Rollin’
5. Go Down, Moses •
6. Been in the Storm So Long •
7. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
8. Steal Away to Jesus •
9. Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?
10. God’s a-Gonna Trouble the Water
11. Walk Together Children
12. Soon I Will Be Done •
13. Come Sunday

GOSPEL

1. This Little Light of Mine •
2. Down by the Riverside
3. Freedom in the Air
4. Take My Hand, Precious Lord •
5. Peace Be Still
6. Stand by Me

THE BLUES

1. Good Morning, Blues •
2. Hellhound on My Trail
3. C. C. Rider •
4. Backwater Blues •
5. Down-Hearted Blues
6. Prove It on Me Blues
7. Trouble in Mind
8. How Long Blues
9. Rock Me Baby •
10. Yellow Dog Blues
11. St. Louis Blues
12. Beale Street Blues •
13. The Hesitating Blues
14. Goin’ to Chicago Blues
15. Fine and Mellow
16. Hoochie Coochie
17. Sunnyland •
18. My Handy Man •

SECULAR RHYMES AND SONGS, BALLADS, WORK SONGS, AND SONGS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

1. SECULAR RHYMES AND SONGS
2. 1. [We raise de wheat]
   2. Me and My Captain
   3. Promises of Freedom
   4. No More Auction Block
   5. Jack and Dinah Want Freedom
   6. Run, Nigger, Run
   7. Another Man Done Gone
   8. You May Go But This Will Bring You Back •
3. BALLADS
4. 1. John Henry
   2. Frankie and Johnny
   3. Railroad Bill
   4. The Signifying Monkey
   5. Stackolee
   6. Sinking of the Titanic
   7. Shine and the Titanic
5. WORK SONGS
6. 1. Pick a Bale of Cotton
   2. Go Down, Old Hannah
   3. Can’t You Line It?
7. SONGS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
8. 1. Oh, Freedom
   2. Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round
   3. Abel Meeropol: Strange Fruit •
   4. We Shall Overcome
   5. Langston Hughes: The Backlash Blues
   6. Nina Simone: Four Women •

JAZZ

1. Duke Ellington: It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) •
2. Andy Razaf: (What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue •
3. King Pleasure: Parker’s Mood •

RHYTHM AND BLUES

1. Sam Cooke: A Change Is Gonna Come
2. Smokey Robinson: The Tracks of My Tears
3. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas: Dancin’ in the Street •
4. Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin: Respect
5. Curtis Mayfield: We’re a Winner
6. Marvin Gaye: What’s Goin’ On?
7. Stevie Wonder: Living for the City

HIP HOP

1. Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
2. Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: The Message •
3. Public Enemy: Don’t Believe the Hype
4. Queen Latifah: The Evil That Men Do
5. Biggy Smalls—The Notorious B.I.G.: Things Done Changed
6. Nas: N.Y. State of Mind
7. Eric B. & Rakim: I Ain’t No Joke

SERMONS

1. God
2. James Weldon Johnson: Listen Lord, A Prayer
3. C. L. Franklin: The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest
4. Howard Thurman: O God, I Need Thee
5. G. I. Townsel: The Way Out Is to Pray Out •
6. Martin Luther King Jr.
7. 1. I Have a Dream •
   2. I’ve Been to the Mountaintop
8. Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet •
9. James Alexander Forbes Jr.: O God of Love, Power and Justice
10. Bert Williams: Elder Eatmore’s Sermon on Generosity •

FOLKTALES

1. All God’s Chillen Had Wings
2. Big Talk
3. Deer Hunting Story
4. How to Write a Letter
5. “‘Member Youse a Nigger”
6. “Ah’ll Beatcher Makin’ Money”
7. Why the Sister in Black Works Hardest
8. “De Reason Niggers Is Working So Hard”
9. The Ventriloquist
10. You Talk Too Much, Anyhow
11. A Flying Fool
12. Brer Rabbit Tricks Brer Fox Again
13. The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story
14. How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox
15. The Awful Fate of Mr. Wolf
16. What the Rabbit Learned

The Literature of Slavery and Freedom, 1746–1865

JUPITER HAMMON (1711–1790/1806)

1. An Evening Thought
2. An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly

VENTURE SMITH (1729?–1805) †

1. A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America

LUCY TERRY (c. 1724–1821)

1. Bars Fight

OLAUDAH EQUIANO (c. 1745–1797)

1. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself
2. 1. Volume I
   2. 1. Chapter I
      2. Chapter II
      3. From Chapter III
      4. From Chapter IV

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (1753?–1784)

1. From Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
2. 1. Preface
   2. [Letter Sent by the Author’s Master to the Publisher]
   3. [To the Publick]
   4. To Mæcenas
   5. To the University of Cambridge, in New-England
   6. On Being Brought from Africa to America
   7. On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield
   8. 1770
   9. To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North-America, Etc.
   10. On Imagination
   11. To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works
3. To Samson Occom
4. To His Excellency General Washington

DAVID WALKER (1785–1830)

1. David Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World
2. 1. Preamble
   2. Article I. Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery

GEORGE MOSES HORTON (1797?–1883?)

1. The Lover’s Farewell
2. On Hearing of the Intention of a Gentleman to Purchase the Poet’s Freedom
3. Division of an Estate
4. The Creditor to His Proud Debtor
5. George Moses Horton, Myself

SOJOURNER TRUTH (1797–1883)

1. Ar’n’t I a Woman?
2. 1. From the Anti-Slavery Bugle, June 21, 1851
   2. From The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, 1878

MARIA W. STEWART (1803–1879)

1. Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build
2. 1. Introduction
3. Lecture Delivered at the Franklin Hall, Boston, September 21, 1832

MARTIN R. DELANY (1812–1885)

1. The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States
2. 1. Chapter I. Condition of Many Classes in Europe Considered
   2. Chapter II. Comparative Condition of the Colored People of the United States
   3. Chapter V. Means of Elevation
   4. Chapter XXIII. Things as They Are
   5. Chapter XXIV. A Glance at Ourselves—
   6. Conclusion

HARRIET JACOBS (c. 1813–1897)

1. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
2. 1. Preface
   2. I. Childhood
   3. II. The New Master and Mistress
   4. V. The Trials of Girlhood
   5. X. A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life
   6. XIV. Another Link to Life
   7. XVII. The Flight
   8. XXI. The Loophole of Retreat
   9. XXIX. Preparations for Escape
   10. XXXIX. The Confession
   11. XL. The Fugitive Slave Law
   12. XLI. Free at Last

WILLIAM WELLS BROWN (1814?–1884)

1. Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave
2. 1. Chapter V
   2. From Chapter VI
3. Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter
4. 1. Chapter I. The Negro Sale
   2. Chapter II. Going to the South
   3. Chapter IV. The Quadroon’s Home
   4. Chapter XV. To-Day a Mistress, To-Morrow a Slave
   5. Chapter XIX. Escape of Clotel

HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET (1815–1882)

1. An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America

VICTOR SÉJOUR (1817–1874)

1. The Mulatto

ELIZABETH KECKLEY (c. 1818–1907)

1. Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House
2. 1. Preface.
   2. Chapter I. Where I Was Born
   3. Chapter II. Girlhood and Its Sorrows
   4. Chapter III. How I Gained My Freedom
   5. Chapter IV. In the Family of Senator Jefferson Davis

FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1818–1895)

1. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself †
2. My Bondage and My Freedom
3. 1. Chapter XXIII. Introduced to the Abolitionists
   2. Chapter XXIV. Twenty-One Months in Great Britain
4. From What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?: An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852
5. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
6. 1. Second Part
   2. 1. From Chapter XV. Weighed in the Balance
   3. Third Part
   4. 1. Chapter 1. Later Life

JAMES M. WHITFIELD (1822–1871)

1. America
2. Yes! Strike Again That Sounding String
3. Self-Reliance

FRANCES E. W. HARPER (1825–1911)

1. Ethiopia
2. Eliza Harris
3. The Slave Mother
4. Vashti
5. Bury Me in a Free Land
6. Aunt Chloe’s Politics
7. Learning to Read
8. A Double Standard
9. Songs for the People
10. An Appeal to My Country Women
11. The Two Offers
12. Our Greatest Want
13. Fancy Etchings
14. 1. [Enthusiasm and Lofty Aspirations]
    2. [Dangerous Economies]
15. Woman’s Political Future

HARRIET E. WILSON (1828?–1863?)

1. Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White House, North
2. 1. Preface
   2. Chapter I. Mag Smith, My Mother
   3. Chapter II. My Father’s Death
   4. Chapter III. A New Home for Me
   5. From Chapter VIII. Visitor and Departure
   6. Chapter X. Perplexities—Another Death
   7. Chapter XII. The Winding Up of the Matter

Literature of the Reconstruction to the Negro Renaissance, 1865–1919

CHARLOTTE FORTEN GRIMKÉ (1837–1914)

1. A Parting Hymn
2. Journals
3. 1. From Journal One
   2. From Journal Three

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON (1856–1915)

1. Up From Slavery
2. 1. Chapter I. A Slave among Slaves
   2. Chapter II. Boyhood Days
   3. Chapter III. The Struggle for an Education
   4. Chapter XIV. The Atlanta Exposition Address

CHARLES W. CHESNUTT (1858–1932)

1. The Goophered Grapevine
2. The Passing of Grandison
3. The Wife of His Youth
4. From The Journals of Charles W. Chesnutt

ANNA JULIA COOPER (1858?–1964)

1. Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race

PAULINE E. HOPKINS (1859–1930)

1. Talma Gordon
2. Famous Men of the Negro Race
3. 1. Booker T. Washington
4. Famous Women of the Negro Race
5. 1. V. Literary Workers (Concluded)
6. Letter from Cordelia A. Condict and Pauline Hopkins’s
7. Reply (March 1903)

IDA B. WELLS-BARNETT (1862–1931)

1. A Red Record
2. 1. Chapter I. The Case Stated
   2. Chapter X. The Remedy

W. E. B. DU BOIS (1868–1963)

1. A Litany of Atlanta
2. The Song of the Smoke
3. The Souls of Black Folk
4. 1. The Forethought
   2. I. Of Our Spiritual Strivings
   3. III. Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others
   4. IV. Of the Meaning of Progress
   5. V. Of the Wings of Atalanta
   6. VI. Of the Training of Black Men
   7. X. Of the Faith of the Fathers
   8. XI. Of the Passing of the First-Born
   9. XII. Of Alexander Crummell
   10. XIII. Of the Coming of John
   11. XIV. The Sorrow Songs
   12. The After-Thought
5. The Damnation of Women
6. Criteria of Negro Art
7. Two Novels

JAMES D. CORROTHERS (1869–1917)

1. The Snapping of the Bow
2. Me ’n’ Dunbar
3. Paul Laurence Dunbar
4. At the Closed Gate of Justice
5. An Indignation Dinner

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON (1871–1938)

1. Sence You Went Away
2. Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing
3. O Black and Unknown Bards
4. Fifty Years
5. Brothers
6. The Creation •
7. My City
8. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man †
9. The Book of American Negro Poetry
10. 1. Preface

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (1872–1906)

1. Ode to Ethiopia
2. Worn Out
3. A Negro Love Song
4. The Colored Soldiers
5. An Ante-Bellum Sermon
6. Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes
7. Not They Who Soar
8. When Malindy Sings
9. We Wear the Mask
10. Little Brown Baby
11. Her Thought and His
12. A Cabin Tale
13. Sympathy
14. Dinah Kneading Dough
15. The Haunted Oak
16. Douglass
17. Philosophy
18. Black Samson of Brandywine
19. The Poet
20. The Fourth of July and Race Outrages

SUTTON E. GRIGGS (1872–1933)

1. The Hindered Hand; or, The Reign of the Repressionist
2. 1. Chapter XIX. The Fugitives Flee Again
   2. Chapter XX. The Blaze

ALICE MOORE DUNBAR NELSON (1875–1935)

1. Violets
2. I Sit and Sew
3. April Is on the Way
4. Violets

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE (1878–1962)

1. The Watchers
2. The House of Falling Leaves
3. Sic Vita
4. Turn Me to My Yellow Leaves
5. Quiet Has a Hidden Sound

FENTON JOHNSON (1888–1958)

1. Singing Hallelujah
2. Song of the Whirlwind
3. My God in Heaven Said to Me
4. The Lonely Mother
5. Tired
6. The Scarlet Woman

Harlem Renaissance, 1919-1940

ARTHUR A. SCHOMBURG (1874–1938)

1. The Negro Digs Up His Past

ANGELINA WELD GRIMKÉ (1880–1958)

1. A Winter Twilight
2. The Black Finger
3. When the Green Lies over the Earth
4. Tenebris

ANNE SPENCER (1882–1975)

1. Before the Feast of Shushan
2. Dunbar
3. At the Carnival
4. The Wife-Woman

JESSIE REDMON FAUSET (c. 1884–1961)

1. Plum Bun: A Novel without a Moral
2. 1. Home
   2. 1. Chapter I [Black Philadelphia]
      2. Chapter II [Sundays]

ALAIN LOCKE (1886–1954)

1. The New Negro

GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON (1886–1966)

1. The Heart of a Woman
2. Youth
3. Lost Illusions
4. I Want to Die While You Love Me

MARCUS GARVEY (1887–1940)

1. Africa for the Africans
2. The Future as I See It

CLAUDE McKAY (1889–1948)

1. Harlem Shadows
2. If We Must Die •
3. To the White Fiends
4. Africa
5. America
6. My Mother
7. Enslaved
8. The White House
9. Outcast
10. St. Isaac’s Church, Petrograd
11. Home to Harlem
12. 1. Chapter XVII. He Also Loved
13. Harlem Runs Wild

ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891–1960)

1. Sweat
2. How It Feels to Be Colored Me
3. The Gilded Six-Bits
4. Characteristics of Negro Expression
5. Mules and Men
6. 1. [Negro Folklore]
7. Their Eyes Were Watching God
8. 1. Chapter 1 [The Return]
   2. Chapter 2 [Pear Tree]
9. Dust Tracks on a Road
10. 1. Chapter X. Research

NELLA LARSEN (1893–1964)

1. Quicksand †

JEAN TOOMER (1894–1967)

1. Cane
2. 1. Karintha
   2. Reapers
   3. November Cotton Flower
   4. Becky
   5. Face
   6. Cotton Song
   7. Carma
   8. Song of the Son
   9. Georgia Dusk
   10. Fern
   11. Nullo
   12. Evening Song
   13. Esther
   14. Conversion
   15. Portrait in Georgia
   16. Blood-Burning Moon
   17. Seventh Street
   18. Rhobert
   19. Avey
   20. Beehive
   21. Storm Ending
   22. Theater
   23. Her Lips Are Copper Wire
   24. Calling Jesus
   25. Box Seat
   26. Prayer
   27. Harvest Song
   28. Bona and Paul

GEORGE SAMUEL SCHUYLER (1895–1977)

1. The Negro-Art Hokum

RUDOLPH FISHER (1897–1934)

1. The City of Refuge
2. The Caucasian Storms Harlem

MARITA BONNER (1899–1971)

1. On Being Young—a Woman—and Colored

STERLING A. BROWN (1901–1989)

1. Odyssey of Big Boy
2. Long Gone
3. Southern Road
4. Strong Men •
5. Memphis Blues
6. Slim Greer
7. Tin Roof Blues
8. Ma Rainey
9. Cabaret
10. Sporting Beasley
11. Sam Smiley
12. Old Lem

GWENDOLYN B. BENNETT (1902–1981)

1. Heritage
2. To a Dark Girl
3. Sonnet—2
4. Hatred

WALLACE THURMAN (1902–1934)

1. Infants of the Spring
2. 1. Chapter XXI [Harlem Salon]

ARNA BONTEMPS (1902–1973)

1. A Black Man Talks of Reaping
2. Nocturne at Bethesda
3. Southern Mansion
4. Miracles
5. A Summer Tragedy

LANGSTON HUGHES (1902–1967)

1. The Negro Speaks of Rivers •
2. Mother to Son
3. Danse Africaine
4. Jazzonia
5. When Sue Wears Red
6. Dream Variations
7. The Weary Blues
8. I, Too
9. Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret
10. Homesick Blues
11. Po’ Boy Blues
12. Mulatto
13. Red Silk Stockings
14. Song for a Dark Girl
15. Gal’s Cry for a Dying Lover
16. Dear Lovely Death
17. Afro-American Fragment
18. Negro Servant
19. Christ in Alabama
20. Letter to the Academy
21. Ballad of the Landlord
22. Merry-Go-Round
23. Madam and the Rent Man
24. Trumpet Player
25. Madam and the Phone Bill
26. Song for Billie Holiday
27. Juke Box Love Song
28. Dream Boogie
29. Harlem
30. Motto
31. Theme for English B
32. Not What Was
33. The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain
34. The Blues I’m Playing
35. The Big Sea
36. 1. When the Negro Was in Vogue
    2. Harlem Literati
    3. Downtown

COUNTEE CULLEN (1903–1946)

1. Yet Do I Marvel
2. Tableau
3. Incident
4. Saturday’s Child
5. The Shroud of Color
6. Heritage †
7. To John Keats, Poet, at Spring Time
8. From the Dark Tower

HELENE JOHNSON (1907–1995)

1. Poem
2. Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem
3. Remember Not
4. Invocation

Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, 1940–1960

MELVIN B. TOLSON (1900?–1966)

1. An Ex-Judge at the Bar
2. Dark Symphony
3. A Legend of Versailles
4. From Libretto for the Republic of Liberia
5. The Birth of John Henry
6. Satchmo

DOROTHY WEST (1907–1998)

1. The Living Is Easy
2. 1. Part One
   2. 1. Chapter 1 [Cleo]
      2. Chapter 2 [Cleo’s High Jinks]
      3. Chapter 3 [Cleo Goes North]

RICHARD WRIGHT (1908–1960)

1. Blueprint for Negro Writing
2. The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, an Autobiographical
3. Sketch
4. Long Black Song
5. The Man Who Lived Underground †
6. Black Boy
7. 1. Chapter XIII [Booklist]
   2. Chapter XVI [Chicago]

CHESTER B. HIMES (1909–1984)

1. To What Red Hell

ANN PETRY (1911–1997)

1. Like a Winding Sheet
2. The Street
3. 1. Chapter I [The Apartment]

ROBERT HAYDEN (1913–1982)

1. The Diver
2. Homage to the Empress of the Blues
3. Middle Passage
4. Those Winter Sundays •
5. O Daedalus, Fly Away Home
6. Runagate Runagate
7. Frederick Douglass
8. A Ballad of Remembrance
9. Mourning Poem for the Queen of Sunday
10. Soledad
11. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
12. A Letter from Phillis Wheatley

RALPH ELLISON (1914–1994)

1. Richard Wright’s Blues
2. Invisible Man
3. 1. Prologue
   2. Chapter 1 [Battle Royal]
   3. Epilogue
4. Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke
5. The World and the Jug
6. Remembering Richard Wright
7. Letter to Stanley Edgar Hyman

MARGARET WALKER (1915–1998)

1. For My People •
2. Poppa Chicken
3. For Malcolm X
4. Prophets for a New Day

GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1917–2000)

1. kitchenette building
2. the mother
3. a song in the front yard •
4. Sadie and Maud
5. The Vacant Lot
6. the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon
7. The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith
8. Maxie Allen
9. The Rites for Cousin Vit
10. The Children of the Poor
11. The Lovers of the Poor
12. We Real Cool •
13. The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock
14. A Lovely Love
15. Malcolm X
16. Two Dedications
17. Riot
18. The Third Sermon on the Warpland
19. Young Heroes
20. when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story
21. Maud Martha

JAMES BALDWIN (1924–1987)

1. Everybody’s Protest Novel
2. Going to Meet the Man
3. Stranger in the Village
4. Notes of a Native Son
5. Sonny’s Blues

BOB KAUFMAN (1925–1986)

1. Walking Parker Home
2. Grandfather Was Queer, Too
3. Jail Poems

LORRAINE HANSBERRY (1930–1965)

1. A Raisin in the Sun †

The Black Arts Era, 1960–1975

MARI EVANS (b. 1923)

1. Status Symbol
2. I Am a Black Woman

HOYT FULLER (1923–1981)

1. Towards a Black Aesthetic

MALCOLM X (EL-HAJJ MALIK EL-SHABAZZ) (1925–1965)

1. The Autobiography of Malcolm X
2. 1. Chapter Eleven. Saved

JOHN ALFRED WILLIAMS (b. 1925)

1. The Man Who Cried I Am
2. 1. 1 [In an Outdoor Café]
   2. 2 [Memories, Margrit, Morphine]
   3. 3 [Picture of the Writer]

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (1929–1968)

1. Letter from Birmingham Jail

ETHERIDGE KNIGHT (1931–1985)

1. The Idea of Ancestry
2. Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane
3. For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide

ADDISON GAYLE JR. (1932–1991)

1. The Black Aesthetic
2. 1. Introduction

AUDRE LORDE (1934–1992)

1. Equinox
2. Coal
3. Now That I Am Forever with Child
4. A Litany for Survival
5. Poetry Is Not a Luxury
6. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
7. 1. From 3
   2. From 11
   3. From 31
   4. Epilogue

AMIRI BARAKA (b. 1934)

1. Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
2. In Memory of Radio
3. A Poem for Black Hearts
4. I don’t love you
5. Three Movements and a Coda
6. SOS
7. Black Art
8. The Invention of Comics
9. Wailers •
10. Dutchman †
11. The Revolutionary Theatre

SONIA SANCHEZ (b. 1934)

1. homecoming
2. poem at thirty
3. for our lady
4. Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict •
5. A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women
6. 1. From Part Three

ED BULLINS (b. 1935)

1. Goin’a Buffalo: A Tragifantasy

ELDRIDGE CLEAVER (1935–1998)

1. Soul on Ice
2. The Primeval Mitosis

A. B. SPELLMAN (b. 1935)

1. Did John’s Music Kill Him?

JUNE JORDAN (1936–2002)

1. In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.
2. Poem about My Rights
3. Poem for Guatemala
4. Intifada
5. From Civil Wars: Observations from the Front Lines of America
6. From Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood

LUCILLE CLIFTON (b. 1936)

1. the lost baby poem
2. malcolm
3. homage to my hips
4. wishes for sons
5. move

JAYNE CORTEZ (b. 1936)

1. How Long Has Trane Been Gone •

LARRY NEAL (1937–1981)

1. The Black Arts Movement

ISHMAEL REED (b. 1938)

1. I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra
2. Railroad Bill, a Conjure Man
3. Dualism
4. Chattanooga
5. Neo-HooDoo Manifesto
6. From Mumbo Jumbo

MICHAEL S. HARPER (b. 1938)

1. Dear John, Dear Coltrane •
2. Deathwatch
3. Br’er Sterling and the Rocker
4. Grandfather

TONI CADE BAMBARA (1939–1995)

1. Raymond’s Run
2. From The Salt Eaters

MAULANA KARENGA (b. 1941)

1. Black Art: Mute Matter Given Force and Function

HAKI R. MADHUBUTI (b. 1942)

1. Back Again, Home
2. Introduction [to Think Black]
3. The Long Reality
4. Malcolm Spoke / who listened?
5. a poem to complement other poems

NIKKI GIOVANNI (b. 1943)

1. For Saundra
2. Beautiful Black Men
3. Nikki-Rosa
4. Knoxville, Tennessee
5. From a Logical Point of View

JAMES ALAN McPHERSON (b. 1943)

1. A Solo Song: For Doc

QUINCY TROUPE (b. 1943)

1. In Texas Grass
2. Conversation Overheard
3. Impressions / of Chicago; For Howlin’ Wolf

CAROLYN M. RODGERS (b. 1945)

1. Jesus Was Crucified
2. It Is Deep
3. For Sistuhs Wearin’ Straight Hair

Literature Since 1975

ALBERT MURRAY (b. 1916)

1. Train Whistle Guitar
2. 1. [History Lessons]

MAYA ANGELOU (b. 1928)

1. Still I Rise
2. My Arkansas
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
4. 1. Chapter 15 [Mrs. Flowers]
   2. Chapter 16 [“Mam”]

PAULE MARSHALL (b. 1929)

1. Reena
2. To Da-Duh, in Memoriam
3. The Making of a Writer: From the Poets in the
4. Kitchen

ADRIENNE KENNEDY (b. 1931)

1. A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White †

TONI MORRISON (b. 1931)

1. Song of Solomon
2. 1. Part II
   2. 1. Chapter 10
      2. Chapter 11
      3. Chapter 12
      4. Chapter 13
      5. Chapter 14
      6. Chapter 15
3. Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation
4. The Site of Memory
5. Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American
6. Presence in American Literature

ERNEST J. GAINES (b. 1933)

1. The Sky Is Gray

CLARENCE MAJOR (b. 1936)

1. Swallow the Lake
2. Round Midnight
3. On Watching a Caterpillar Become a Butterfly
4. Chicago Heat

LEON FORREST (1937–1997)

1. There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden
2. 1. The Epistle of Sweetie Reed

JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN (b. 1941)

1. Brothers and Keepers
2. 1. [Robby’s Version]
3. Damballah

SAMUEL R. DELANY (b. 1942)

1. From Atlantis: Model 1924

SHERLEY ANNE WILLIAMS (1944–1999)

1. The Peacock Poems: 1
2. I Want Aretha to Set This to Music
3. Tell Martha Not to Moan

ALICE WALKER (b. 1944)

1. Women
2. Outcast
3. On Stripping Bark from Myself
4. “Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning”
5. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
6. Everyday Use
7. Advancing Luna—and Ida B. Wells
8. The Color Purple
9. 1. [God Love All Them Feelings]

AUGUST WILSON (b. 1945)

1. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone †

MICHELLE CLIFF (b. 1946)

1. Within the Veil
2. Columba

OCTAVIA BUTLER (b. 1947)

1. Bloodchild

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA (b. 1947)

1. February in Sydney
2. Facing It
3. Sunday Afternoons
4. Banking Potatoes
5. Birds on a Powerline

NATHANIEL MACKEY (b. 1947)

1. Falso Brilhante
2. Song of the Andoumboulou: 8
3. Djbot Baghostus’s Run
4. 1. 26.IX.81

CHARLES JOHNSON (b. 1948)

1. The Education of Mingo

NTOZAKE SHANGE (b. 1948)

1. From for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf
2. Nappy Edges
3. Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography

GAYL JONES (b. 1949)

1. From Corregidora

JAMAICA KINCAID (b. 1949)

1. Annie John
2. 1. Chapter Two. The Circling Hand

DAVID BRADLEY (b. 1950)

1. The Chaneysville Incident
2. 1. [Old Jack]

GLORIA NAYLOR (b. 1950)

1. The Women of Brewster Place
2. 1. The Two

RITA DOVE (b. 1952)

1. David Walker (1785–1830)
2. Parsley
3. Receiving the Stigmata
4. Thomas and Beulah
5. 1. The Event •
   2. Motherhood
   3. Daystar
   4. The Oriental Ballerina
6. Pastoral
7. Mother Love
8. 1. Statistic: The Witness
   2. Mother Love
   3. Demeter Mourning
   4. History
   5. Demeter’s Prayer to Hades

WALTER MOSLEY (b. 1952)

1. Equal Opportunity

HARRYETTE MULLEN (b. 1953)

1. Muse & Drudge
2. 1. [Sapphire’s lyre styles]
   2. [country clothes hung on her all and sundry]
   3. [odds meeting on a bus]
   4. [why these blues come from us]
   5. [go on sister sing your song]
   6. [tomboy girl with cowboy boots]
   7. [sauce squandering sassy cook]
   8. [marry at a hotel, annul ’em]
   9. [precious cargo up crooked alleys]
   10. [with all that rope they gave us]
   11. [the royal yellow sovereign]
   12. [tom-tom can’t catch]
   13. [massa had a yeller]
   14. [cough drops prick thick]
   15. [ain’t cut drylongso]
   16. [soulless divaism]
   17. [moon, whoever knew you]

ESSEX HEMPHILL (1957–1995)

1. Conditions
2. 1. XXI
   2. XXII
   3. XXIV

CARYL PHILLIPS (b. 1958)

1. Crossing the River
2. 1. II. West

EDWIDGE DANTICAT (b. 1969)

1. Breath, Eyes, Memory
2. 1. Chapter 1
   2. Chapter 35

COLSON WHITEHEAD (b. 1969)

1. John Henry Days
2. 1. [1]
   2. [2]
   3. [3]

Selected Bibliographies

Timeline

Audio Companion Liner Notes