African-American Literature is a collection of eighty-five selections that exemplify the range and depth of the writing of African Americans, including such early writers as Frederick Douglass and Phillis Wheatley and such modern writers as Haki Madhubuti and Rita Dove. From classic to contemporary, these authors represent the African-American literary tradition at its best.
African-American Literature includes poetry, fiction, essays, and drama. In addition, extensive features, including historical and thematic context, biographical information, and writing and discussion questions, provide important support.

The Folk Tradition

Motherless Child, Anonymous

The Knee-High Man Tries to Get Sizable, Carl Carmer

How Buck Won His Freedom, Anonymous

from The Eatonville Anthology, Zora Neal Hurston

People Who Could Fly, Julius Lester

The Steel Drivin Man, A. Phillip Randolph and Chandler Owen

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Anonymous

Stagolee, Julius Lester

Language and Literacy

Introduction from Black Talk, Geneva Smitherman

The Gophered Grapevine, Charles W. Chesnutt

See How They Run, Mary Elizabeth Vroman

Life Every Voice and Sing, James Weldon Johnson

I Done Worked! Lottie Jackson

from The African Garden, Alice Childress

The Creation, James Weldon Johnson

The Blues Pain and Survival

Music: Black, White, and Blue, Ishmael Reed

The Blues Im Playing, Langston Hughes

Its the Law: A Rap Poem, Saundra Sharp

Sonnys Blues, James Baldwin

The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes

Dance Bodies #1, Eugene B. Redmond

Solo on the Drums, Ann Petry

Canary, Rita Dove

Slavery Time of Trial

The Slave Mother, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

On Being Brought from Africa to America, Phillis Wheatley

Runagate Runagate, Robert Hayden

Letter to His Master, Frederick Dougless

An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America, Henry Highland Garnet

Nat Turners Confession, Nat Turner

Harriet Tubman Is in My Blood, Mariline Wilkins

Song of the Son, Jean Toomer

Standing Ground

If We Must Die, Claude McKay

I, Too, Langston Hughes

A Summer Tragedy, Arna Bontemps

Willie, Maya Angelou

An Address Delivered at the Opening of the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, September 1895, Booker T. Washington

Chapter 3: Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others, W. E. B. DuBois

Miss Rosie, Lucille Clifton

Identity

We Wear the Mask, Paul Laurence Dunbar

from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X with Alex Haley

Hidden Name and Complex Fate, Ralph Ellison

Where Is the Black Community? Joyce Carol Thomas

Of Our Spiritual Strivings, W. E. B DuBois

All About My Job, Alice Childress

Stranger in the Village, James Baldwin

Epilogue from Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

Dreamers and Revolutionaries

Vive Noir! Mari Evans

Nikki-Roasa, Nikki Giovanni

The Immediate Program of the American Negro, W. E. B. Dubois

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, Amiri Baraka

Assassination, Haki R. Madhubuti

Winter in America, Gil Scott-Heron

To Mississippi Youth, Malcolm X

I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King Jr.

Women

The Tree of Love, Linda Goss

the Womans Mourning Song, Bell Hooks

Getting the Facts of Life, Paulette Childress White

Restoration: A Memorial 9/18/91, Audre Lorde

To Da-duh, In Memoriam, Paule Marshall

One Thing I dont Need, Ntozake Shange

Magic, Rita Dove

Plumes, Georgia Douglas Johnson

Men

Strong Men, Sterling Brown

My Search for Roots, Alex Haley

Speech Delivered at Madison Square Garden, March 1924, Marcus Garvey

A Black Man Talks of Reaping, Arna Bontemps

from The Big Sea, Langston Hughes

The Only Man on Liberty Street, William Melvin Kelley

Minstrel Man, Langston Hughes

The Man Who Was Almost a Man, Richard Wright

Relationships

The Union of Two, Haki R. Madhubuti

The Wife of His Youth, Charles W. Chesnutt

The Bean Eaters, Gwendolyn Brooks

Sweat, Zora Neale Hurston

Letter from Charles R. Drew, Charles R. Drew

1927 from Sula, Toni Morrison

Valentines, Henry Dumas

Thank You, Maam, Langston Hughes

Family and Ancestors

For My People, Margaret Walker

A Day Lost Is a Day Gone Forever, Dorothy West

Women, Alice Walker

from In My Fathers House, Ernest J. Gaines

Mother to Son, Langston Hughes

Aunt, Al Young

She Walked Alone, Daisy Bates

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