Mark Anthony Neal is the author of four books, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), Songs in the Keys of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation (2003) and New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity (2005). Neal is also the co-editor (with Murray Forman) of That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (2004). Neal is Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University. A frequent commentator for National Public Radio Neal also contributes to several on-line media outlets, including SeeingBlack.com, The Root.com and theGrio.com.

Poem for Aretha                      By Nikki Giovanni Cause nobody deals with Aretha—a mother with four children— having to hit the road they always say "after she comes home" but nobody ever says what it's like to get on a plane for a three week tour the elation of the first couple of audiences the good feeling of exchange the running on the high you get from singing good and loud and long telling the world what's on your mind. Then comes the eighth show on the sixth day the beginning to smell like the plane or bus the if-you-forget-your-toothbrush in-one-spot-you-can't-brush-until-the-second-show the strangers pulling at you cause they love you but you having no love to give back the singing the same songs night after night day after day and if you read the gossip columns the rumors that your husband is only after your fame the wondering if your children will be glad to see you and maybe the not caring if they are scheming to get out of just one show and go just one place where some doe-doe-dupaduke won't say "just sing one song, please!". Nobody mentions how it feels to become a freak because you have talent and how no one gives a damn how you feel but only cares that Aretha Franklin is here like maybe that'll stop chickens from frying eggs from being laid crackers from hating and if you say you're lonely or tired how they always just say "oh come off it" or "did you see how they loved you did you see, huh, did you?" which most likely has nothing to do with you anyway and I'm not saying Aretha shouldn't have talent and I'm certainly not saying she should quit singing but as much as I love her I'd vote "yes" to her doing four concerts a year and staying home or doing whatever she wants and making records cause it's a shame the way we're killing her. We eat up artists like there's going to be a famine at the end of those three minutes when there are in fact an abundance of talents just waiting let's put some of the giants away for a while and deal with them like they have a life to lead. Aretha doesn't have to relive Billi Holiday's life doesn't have to relive Dinah Washington's death but who will stop the pattern? She's more important than her music—if they must be separated— and they should be separated when she has to pass out before anyone recognizes she needs a rest and I say I need Aretha's music she is undoubtedly the one who put everyone on notice. She revived Johnny Ace and remembered Lil Green. Aretha sings "I say a little prayer" and Dionne doesn't want to hear it anymore Aretha sings "money won't change you" but James can't sing "respect" the advent of Aretha pulled Ray Charles from marlboro country and back into the blues made Nancy Wilson try one more time forced Dionne to make a choice (she opted for the movies) and Diana Ross had to get an afro wig pushed every Black singer into his Blackness and negro entertainers into negroness you couldn't jive when she said "you make me feel" the Blazers had to reply "gotta let a man be/a man" Aretha said "when my soul was in the lost and found/you came along to claim it" and Joplin said "maybe" there has been no musician whom her very presence hasn't affected when Humphrey wanted her to campaign for him she said "woeman's only hueman" and he pressured James Brown they removed Otis cause the combination was too strong the Impressions had to say "lord have mercy/we're moving on up" the Black songs started coming from the singers on stage and the dancers in the streets Aretha was the riot was the leader if she had said "come let's do it" it would have been done temptations say why don't we think about it why don't we think about it why don't we think about it from Women Working: An Anthology of Stories and Poems (The Feminist Press, Old Westbury, New York) Source: Get to the Iinside *   *   *   *   * Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)                             By Nikki Giovanni I was born in the congo I walked to the fertile crescent and built    the sphinx I designed a pyramid so tough that a star    that only glows every one hundred years falls    into the center giving divine perfect light I am bad I sat on the throne    drinking nectar with allah I got hot and sent an ice age to europe    to cool my thirst My oldest daughter is nefertiti    the tears from my birth pains    created the nile I am a beautiful woman I gazed on the forest and burned    out the sahara desert    with a packet of goat's meat    and a change of clothes I crossed it in two hours I am a gazelle so swift    so swift you can't catch me    For a birthday present when he was three I gave my son hannibal an elephant    He gave me rome for mother's day My strength flows ever on My son noah built new/ark and I stood proudly at the helm    as we sailed on a soft summer day I turned myself into myself and was    jesus    men intone my loving name    All praises All praises I am the one who would save I sowed diamonds in my back yard My bowels deliver uranium    the filings from my fingernails are    semi-precious jewels    On a trip north I caught a cold and blew My nose giving oil to the arab world I am so hip even my errors are correct I sailed west to reach east and had to round off    the earth as I went    The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid    across three continents I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal I cannot be comprehended except by my permission I mean...I...can fly    like a bird in the sky . . . Source: http://nikki-giovanni.com/page_51.shtml *   *   *   *   * Nikki Giovanni’s Chant-Poem We Are Virginia Tech We are sad today and we will be sad for quite a while … we are Not moving on We are embracing our mourning We are Virginia Tech We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly We are brave enough to bend to cry And sad enough to know we must laugh again We are Virginia Tech We do not understand this tragedy We know we did nothing to deserve it But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS Neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized NO one deserves a tragedy We … are Virginia Tech The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open hearts and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid We are better than we think, and not quite what we want to be We are alive to the imagination and the possibilities We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears Through all this sadness, We are The Hokies! We will …prevail! We will prevail We will prevail We ARE… Virginia Tech. (Transcribed from rough audio by cpe: any errors are mine and not Dr. Giovanni’s. Line breaks, capitalization, and punctuation therein are only speculative.) Source: Moderate Voice

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Peace Be Still"—“Great Pax Whitey”  /  We Are Virginia Tech!  / Ego Tripping  / I Am in the Water

Let America Be America Again  / "Nikki-Rosa" Nikki Giovanni (Def Poetry)  / Talk To Me Poem

Tribute to Poet Nikki Giovanni  / Hip Hop Speaks to Children  / Condoleezza Rice

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Both Giovanni's mother and sister died of lung cancer and in 1995 Giovanni herself was diagnosed with the disease. She had surgery at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio  and eventually had a lung removed. Giovanni gave up smoking after she was diagnosed, saying in 1996 that she now smokes in her dreams. She also denies that her cancer has made her a better person, adding that "[I]f it takes a near-death experience for you to appreciate your life, you're wasting somebody's time." In 1999, Giovanni said she would like to negotiate a truce with her cancer, stating that she'd "like an agreement that we will live together for another 30 years." In 2005 Giovanni contributed an introduction to the book Breaking the Silence: Inspirational Stories of Black Cancer Survivors. Wikipedia

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Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. She and her sister spent their summers with their grandparents in Knoxville, and she graduated with honors from Fisk University, her grandfather's alma mater, in 1968; after graduating from Fisk, she attended the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She published her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968, and within the next year published a second book, thus launching her career as a writer. Early in her career she was dubbed the "Princess of Black Poetry," and over the course of more than three decades of publishing and lecturing she has come to be called both a "National Treasure" and, most recently, one of Oprah Winfrey's twenty-five "Living Legends."

Many of Giovanni's books have received honors and awards. Her autobiography, Gemini, was a finalist for the National Book Award; Love Poems, Blues: For All the Changes, Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Acolytes, and Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat were all honored with NAACP Image Awards. Blues: For All the Changes reached #4 on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller list, a rare achievement for a book of poems. Most recently, her children's picture book Rosa, about the civil rights legend Rosa Parks, became a Caldecott Honors Book, and Bryan Collier, the illustrator, was given the Coretta Scott King award for best illustration. Rosa also reached #3 on The New York Times Bestseller list. Shortly after its release, Bicycles: Love Poems reached #1 on Amazon.com for Poetry.Nikki Giovanni Bio

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Nikki Giovanni Timeline

1968

Borrows money to publish her first volume of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk. Drops out of University of Pennsylvania but continues working at the Settlement House. Continues writing poems at a prodigious rate. Goes to Atlanta for funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated on 4 April. Receives grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Moves to New York City where she begins almost immediately to attract attention. Enrolls in an M. F. A. program at Columbia University’s School of Fine Arts. At the very end of the year, uses money made from sales of Black Feeling Black Talk and a grant from the Harlem Arts Council to privately publish her second volume of poetry, Black Judgement; Broadside Press offers to distribute it.

1969

Teaches at Queens College. Has a Sunday afternoon book party (to promote Black Judgement) at the old Birdland jazz club, which attracts hundreds of people and makes the next day’s metro section of The New York Times. Receives increasing attention from the media and begins receiving invitations to read and speak. In April, The New York Times features her in an article entitled "Renaissance in Black Poetry Expresses Anger." The Amsterdam News names her one of the ten "most admired black women." Regularly publishes book reviews in Negro Digest. Travels to Cincinnati in August for Labor Day weekend and gives birth to Thomas Watson Giovanni, her only child. Returns to New York and begins teaching at Livingston College of Rutgers University; frequently makes the commute with the struggling writer, Toni Cade Bambara (1939-95).

1970

Edits and privately publishes Night Comes Softly, one of the earliest anthologies of poetry by black women; it includes poems by new and relatively unknown writers as well as poems by such established poets as Margaret Walker and Mari Evans. Establishes NikTom, Ltd. Meets Ellis Haizlip (1929-91) and begins making regular appearances on his television program, Soul!, an entertainment/variety/talk show which promoted black art and culture and allowed political expression. (During the history of the show–1967-72–which aired on WNET, many important artists and leaders made appearances, including Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Gladys Knight, Miriam Makeba, and Stevie Wonder. Giovanni was for several years a "regular" on the show.) Giovanni publishes Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement as one volume with William Morrow Publisher. Publishes Re: Creation with Broadside Press. Writes and publishes the broadside, "Poem of Angela Yvonne Davis." Has become a recognized figure on the black literary scene; in the anthology We Speak As Liberators, published in this year, she is referred to as an "established name." Ebony magazine names her Woman of the Year.

1971

Publishes autobiography, Gemini, and poems for children, Spin A Soft Black Song. Black Feeling Black Talk/Black Judgement comes out in paperback. Records Truth Is On Its Way with the New York Community Choir. Performs with the choir in a concert to introduce the album at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem before a crowd of 1,500. Continues regular appearances on Soul!, including an appearance in January with Lena Horne. The Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University approaches her about housing her papers and she accepts; today the Mugar has all of her papers and memorabilia. Contact magazine names her Best Poet in its annual awards. Mademoiselle magazine names her Woman of the Year. Travels to Africa. Truth is a phenomenal success, selling more than 100,000 copies in its first six months. Travels to London to tape special segments of Soul! with James Baldwin; these segments air on 15 and 22 December. Falls ill from exhaustion after returning to the United States.

1972

Publishes My House. Joins National Council of Negro Women. Receives an honorary doctorate from Wilberforce University, becoming the youngest person so honored by the nation’s oldest black college. Truth Is On Its Way receives N.A.T.R.A.’s (National Association of Television and Radio Announcers) Award for Best Spoken Word Album. Receives widespread attention from print media, including such publications as Jet, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and Ebony. Appears frequently on Soul! and makes a guest appearance on the Tonight show. Plays an active role in a new publication undertaken by her friend, Ida Lewis, Encore, later renamed Encore American & Worldwide News, a black news magazine. Until 1980, Giovanni acts as consultant and contributes a regular column for the magazine and also helps finance it. Puts on a free Father’s Day concert with La Belle at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem. Performs at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center with the New York Community Choir and La Belle. Receives key to Lincoln Heights, Ohio. Reads at the Paul Laurence Dunbar Centennial in Dayton, Ohio, where she and Paula Giddings, then an editor at Howard University Press, conceive the idea of a book composed of a conversation between Giovanni and Margaret Walker (1915-98). Travels to Walker’s home in Jackson, Mississippi, in November to begin the tapings. Nikki Giovanni Timeline

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This biography was prepared by Effy Bergstein, Summer 2008.

On June of 1967, the young writer planned and supervised the first Cincinnati Black Arts Festival, in hopes that it would spread awareness of arts and culture within the Black community. She also organized Cincinnati’s black theatrical group, known today as The New Theatre, while simultaneously providing social service at the People’s Settlement House in Wilmington, Delaware.  The young activist was taking leaps towards social evolution, but she could not count on her social work to pay the bills. At the advice of her mother, and with the help of a Ford Foundation Grant, Giovanni began her graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work during 1967 and 1968. Giovanni was now an activist as well as a full time student, but the notorious multi-tasker was also a writer, and penned her first two books while heavily diving into all three roles.

But the poet’s radical political opinions did not please everybody. Fowler wrote that “Giovanni enters the dialogue of the 1960s about black identity with rage against white America that was largely responsible for earning her the label of ‘revolutionary poet.’”

This label, though softened with time, was given to the author early on in her career. In a 1969 New York Times article entitled “Renaissance in Black Poetry Expresses Anger,” author Thomas A. Johnson felt the invigorated renaissance in black poetry was being taken too far:

While the new black renaissance in poetry is fairly recent, the ‘black is beautiful’ theme and black militancy can be found in the Negro poetry of many years ago. Miss Giovanni talked recently of the wide interest among Negroes in poetry. Her basically angry anthology also questions the current relevance of her art in the poem ‘For Saundra,” when she writes “Maybe I shouldn’t write at all, but clean my gun, and check by kerosene supply. Perhaps these are not poetic times at all.” PA Book

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The Nikki Giovanni Collection

The Mugar Memorial Library of Boston University

Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center

The Nikki Giovanni collection consists of manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, subject files, printed material, professional material, personal memorabilia, audio, video, and artwork. 

Correspondence in the collection is extensive, dating primarily from 1970-2007, with some dating back to 1964.  Much of the correspondence, especially the later letters, consists of fan mail to Giovanni from various readers.  Notable correspondents include Arthur Ashe, James Baldwin, Barry Beckham, Ray Blanton (Governor of Tennessee), Julian Bond, Gwendolyn Brooks, H. Rap Brown, Shirley Chisholm, Bill Clinton, Jackie Early, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Leslie Fiedler, Roberta Flack, Katharine Graham, Alex Haley, William Randolph Heart III, John O. Killens, Jerzy Kosinski, Gladys Knight, Patti Labelle, Thurgood Marshall, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Lindsay Patterson, Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey, and Charles Rangel (Congressman from New York).

There are numerous photographs in the collection.  Most of the photos include images of Giovanni, randing from professional portraits to informal snapshots.  Also present are many photos of Giovanni’s friends and family.  Images of others include Julian Bond, H. Rap Brown, and Lena Horne.  Also present are several photos of Africa, including Giovanni’s program at Enugu, Nigeria in 1973. . . .

Audio recordings in the collection include various recordings of Giovanni reading poetry and giving talks. . . . Video recordings in the collection consist almost totally of VHS video tapes, with some Beta tapes included as well.  The tapes include Giovanni appearing on various television programs aired on CNN, BET and other channels; and Giovanni giving readings, talks, and interviews at universities and cities around the country, from the 1980s to about 2000. Artwork in the collection mainly consists of sketches and paintings representing Giovanni.  Also present are prints by various artists, as well as other miscellaneous works. Boston University Archives

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June 2010 Blackademics Interview: Mark Anthony Neal

This Black Music Month our interview is with professor and public intellectual Dr. Mark Anthony Neal. We discuss the role of the public intellectual, Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks and Dr. Neal’s contribution to Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic. Enjoy!

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Ghost Blues by Cornelius Eady / Guarding the Flame of Life 

New Orleans Jazz Funeral for tuba player Kerwin James / They danced atop his casket Jaran 'Julio' Green

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Dear Friends, last evening Mr. Obama gave Newt Gingrich a lesson in how one throws red meat to the mob. See below.
 
You may note the construction of his Address: it begins and ends with US militaristic bravado. Speaking of flipping the script, the murdered becomes the murderer and the murderer the hero who knows how to complete his mission with a trillion-dollar budget.
 
Who can tolerate in any good conscience this kind of chest-beating? America is Back? A large wealthy nation with a military more powerful than China, Russia, UK, China and a dozen other nations put together and Mr. Obama has the damn gall to boast of battering and disrupting and decimating fourth and fifth rate nations. Yet those peoples have the courage and fortitude to bog down a great nation for over a decade.
 
Back? Poverty growing in black communities by leaps and bounds, wealth continuing to rush upward on Wall Street! What a vacuous and arrogant boast! What outrageous theatrical superficiality!
 
And we think we are getting a bargain when the nation's wealth is ripped from the nation's poor and transferred into the hands of greedy elites or dropped as deadly bombs on the weak and impoverished! And we eat up as if we have been given cake!
 
To paraphrase Nikki Giovanni, "Do we have any shame?" Peace Be Still!—Rudy (25 January 2012)

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Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address—24 January 2012—We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world.  For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq.  For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country.  Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated.  The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home. . . . As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana’a to Tripoli.  A year ago, Qaddafi was one of the world’s longest-serving dictators—a murderer with American blood on his hands.  Today, he is gone.  And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change cannot be reversed, and that human dignity cannot be denied. 

How this incredible transformation will end remains uncertain.  But we have a huge stake in the outcome.  And while it’s ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well.  We will stand against violence and intimidation.  We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings—men and women; Christians, Muslims and Jews.  We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty. And we will safeguard America’s own security against those who threaten our citizens, our friends, and our interests.  Look at Iran.  Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one.  The regime is more isolated than ever before; its leaders are faced with crippling sanctions, and as long as they shirk their responsibilities, this pressure will not relent. Let there be no doubt:  America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations. The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe.  Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever.  Our ties to the Americas are deeper.  Our ironclad commitment—and I mean ironclad—to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.

We’ve made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope.  From the coalitions we’ve built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve led against hunger and disease; from the blows we’ve dealt to our enemies, to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back. . . .

One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden.  On it are each of their names.  Some may be Democrats.  Some may be Republicans.  But that doesn’t matter.  Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates—a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary—and Hillary Clinton—a woman who ran against me for president.  All that mattered that day was the mission.—Whitehouse

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Obama renews anti-Iran war rhetoric—25 January 2012—US President Barack Obama has once again renewed threats against Iran, saying that Washington will maintain pressure on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program. On December 31, 2011, President Obama signed into law fresh economic sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in an apparent bid to punish foreign companies and banks that do business with the Iranian financial institution. The bill requires foreign financial firms to make a choice between doing business with the CBI and oil sector or with the US financial sector.The US sanctions, as well as unilateral embargoes imposed on Iran's energy and financial sectors by Britain and Canada, came after the IAEA issued a report on the Iranian nuclear program in early November 2011, accusing Tehran of seeking to weaponize its nuclear technology.—PressTV

Ralph Nader Reviews Obama's State of the Union Speech

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AALBC.com's 25 Best Selling Books

 

Fiction

#1 - Justify My Thug by Wahida Clark
#2 - Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree
#3 - Head Bangers: An APF Sexcapade by Zane
#4 - Life Is Short But Wide by J. California Cooper
#5 - Stackin' Paper 2 Genesis' Payback by Joy King
#6 - Thug Lovin' (Thug 4) by Wahida Clark
#7 - When I Get Where I'm Going by Cheryl Robinson
#8 - Casting the First Stone by Kimberla Lawson Roby
#9 - The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth by Zane

#10 - Covenant: A Thriller  by Brandon Massey

#11 - Diary Of A Street Diva  by Ashley and JaQuavis

#12 - Don't Ever Tell  by Brandon Massey

#13 - For colored girls who have considered suicide  by Ntozake Shange

#14 - For the Love of Money : A Novel by Omar Tyree

#15 - Homemade Loves  by J. California Cooper

#16 - The Future Has a Past: Stories by J. California Cooper

#17 - Player Haters by Carl Weber

#18 - Purple Panties: An Eroticanoir.com Anthology by Sidney Molare

#19 - Stackin' Paper by Joy King

#20 - Children of the Street: An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery by Kwei Quartey

#21 - The Upper Room by Mary Monroe

#22 – Thug Matrimony  by Wahida Clark

#23 - Thugs And The Women Who Love Them by Wahida Clark

#24 - Married Men by Carl Weber

#25 - I Dreamt I Was in Heaven - The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang by Leonce Gaiter

Non-fiction

#1 - Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
#2 - Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans
#3 - Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love by Zane
#4 - Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny by Hill Harper
#5 - Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through by Iyanla Vanzant
#6 - Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey by Marcus Garvey
#7 - The Ebony Cookbook: A Date with a Dish by Freda DeKnight
#8 - The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Frances Cress Welsing
#9 - The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin Woodson

#10 - John Henrik Clarke and the Power of Africana History  by Ahati N. N. Toure

#11 - Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure by Tavis Smiley

#12 -The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

#13 - The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life by Kevin Powell

#14 - The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore

#15 - Why Men Fear Marriage: The Surprising Truth Behind Why So Many Men Can't Commit  by RM Johnson

#16 - Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins

#17 - Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Tom Burrell

#18 - A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

#19 - John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard

#20 - Alain L. Locke: The Biography of a Philosopher by Leonard Harris

#21 - Age Ain't Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife by Carleen Brice

#22 - 2012 Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino
#23 - Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul by Tom Lagana
#24 - 101 Things Every Boy/Young Man of Color Should Know by LaMarr Darnell Shields

#25 - Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class  by Lisa B. Thompson

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The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness By Michele Alexander Contrary to the rosy picture of race embodied in Barack Obama's political success and Oprah Winfrey's financial success, legal scholar Alexander argues vigorously and persuasively that [w]e have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial segregation has been replaced by mass incarceration as a system of social control (More African Americans are under correctional control today... than were enslaved in 1850). Alexander reviews American racial history from the colonies to the Clinton administration, delineating its transformation into the war on drugs. She offers an acute analysis of the effect of this mass incarceration upon former inmates who will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives, denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Most provocatively, she reveals how both the move toward colorblindness and affirmative action may blur our vision of injustice: most Americans know and don't know the truth about mass incarceration—but her carefully researched, deeply engaging, and thoroughly readable book should change that.—Publishers Weekly

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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays Edited by Miriam DeCosta-Willis  Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a collection of fourteen essays by scholars and creative writers from Africa and the Americas. Called one of two significant critical works on Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late 1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of Carter G. Woodson and Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an historical context for understanding 20th-century creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone writers, such as Cuban Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist, and scholar Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the significance of Negritude in Latin America. This collaborative text set the tone for later conferences in which writers and scholars worked together to promote, disseminate, and critique the literature of Spanish-speaking people of African descent. . . . Cited by a literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."

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The White Masters of the World

From The World and Africa, 1965

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)

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Ancient African Nations

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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan  /  The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll  /  Only a Pawn in Their Game

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery / George Jackson  / Hurricane Carter

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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg

The Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804  / January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of Haiti 

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