I did not have my first Black teacher until college. I also had never been assigned a Black author in school until I went to a summer program my sophomore summer ran by the University of Michigan. This is a space for making up time, a space where I talk about classic Black literature I shoulda been read and writing the book reports I shoulda been wrote.

Books I shoulda been read, but just got to (or returned to) recently:

  • Their Eyes Were Watching God- Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

  • Sula- Toni Morrison (1973)

  • The Fire Next Time- James Baldwin (1963)

  • Between The World And Me- Ta-Nahisi Coates (2015)

  • Song of Solomon- Toni Morrison (1977)

  • If Beale Street Could Talk- James Baldwin (1974)

  • I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings- Maya Angelou (1969)

  • Parable of the Talents- Octavia Butler (1998)

  • Native Son- Richard Wright (1940)

  • The Vanishing Half (2020)

  • The Color Purple- Alice Walker (1982)

  • Beloved- Toni Morrison (1987)

  • Kindred- Octavia Butler (1979)

  • Parable of the Sower- Octavia Butler (1993)

  • Passing- Nella Larsen (1929)

  • All About Love: New Visions- bell hooks (1999)

  • The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison (1970)

  • Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe (1958)

  • The Underground Railroad- Colson Whitehead (2016)

  • Jazz- Toni Morrison (1992)

  • Giovanni’s Room- James Baldwin (1956)

  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X- Alex Haley (1965)

  • Paradise- Toni Morrison (1994)