The QBR 100 Essential Black Books

  1. A Black Theology of Liberation (Ethics and Society) by James H. Cone
  2. A Hard Road To Glory: A History Of The African American Athlete: Vol 3 1946-Present by Arthur Ashe
  3. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines
  4. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
  5. AFRICA MUST UNITE by Kwame Nkrumah
  6. Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks
  7. Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America; Sixth Revised Edition by Lerone Bennett
  8. Beloved by Toni Morrison
  9. Black Betty by Walter Mosley
  10. Black Bourgeoisie: The Book That Brought the Shock of Self-Revelation to Middle-Class Blacks in America by E. Franklin Frazier
  11. Black Boy by Richard Wright
  12. Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (Feminist Classics) by Michele Wallace
  13. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton
  14. Black Power : The Politics of Liberation by Kwame Ture
  15. Black Reconstruction In America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B. Du Bois
  16. Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
  17. Blues People: Negro Music in White America by Amiri Baraka
  18. Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America—An Anthology by Herb Boyd and Robert L. Allen
  19. Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman
  20. Cane by Jean Toomer
  21. Clotel: Or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States by William Wells Brown
  22. Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans by James M. Washington
  23. Damballah (Homewood Trilogy) by John Edgar Wideman
  24. Daughters of Africa by Margaret Busby
  25. David Walker’s Appeal by David Walker
  26. Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
  27. Faith And The Good Thing by Charles Johnson
  28. Fences (1950s Century Cycle) by August Wilson
  29. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
  30. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans by John Hope Franklin
  31. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
  32. God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène
  33. Guide My Feet: Prayers and Meditations for Our Children by Marian Wright Edelman
  34. I Have A Dream/ Also Letter From Birmingham Jail (Tale Blazers) by Martin Luther King, Jr.
  35. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  36. If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes
  37. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  38. Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
  39. Jubilee by Margaret Walker
  40. Kehinde by Buchi Emecheta
  41. Kindred by Octavia Butler
  42. Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat
  43. Manchild In The Promised Land by Claude Brown
  44. Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks
  45. Miles: The Autobiography by Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe
  46. Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed
  47. My Soul is a Witness: African-American Women’s Spirituality by Gloria Wade-Gayles
  48. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
  49. Native Son by Richard Wright
  50. Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989 by Stanley Crouch
  51. Our Nig: Or, Sketches From the Life of a Free Black by Harriet E. Wilson
  52. Praise Song for the Widow by Paule Marshall
  53. Praisesong For The Widow by Paule Marshall
  54. Race Matters by Cornel West
  55. Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
  56. Sally Hemings: A Novel by Barbara Chase-Riboud
  57. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton by Bobby Seale
  58. Sister Outsider: Essays And Speeches by Audre Lorde
  59. Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter
  60. Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson by George Jackson
  61. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
  62. Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver
  63. Spirits of the Passage by Cornel West
  64. Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy Is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy by George G. M. James
  65. Tapping the Power Within: A Path to Self-Empowerment for Black Women by Iyanla Vanzant
  66. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (As told to Alex Haley) by Malcolm X
  67. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest Gaines
  68. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James
  69. The Blacker The Berry… by Wallace Thurman
  70. The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel by David Bradley
  71. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  72. The Conjure Stories (Norton Critical Editions) by Charles W. Chesnutt
  73. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership by Harold Cruse
  74. The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. by Chancellor Williams
  75. The Famished Road by Ben Okri
  76. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
  77. The Hero And the Blues by Albert Murray
  78. The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olaudah Equiano: Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano
  79. The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902-1941: I, Too, Sing America by Arnold Rampersad
  80. The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II: 1914-1967, I Dream a World by Arnold Rampersad
  81. The Lyrics Of Lowly Life by Paul Laurence Dunbar
  82. The Man Who Cried I Am by John A. Williams
  83. The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson
  84. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Or, Africa for the Africans: Or, Africa for the Africans by Marcus Mosiah Garvey
  85. The River Between by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
  86. The Souls of Black Folk: Includes “The Talented Tenth” and ”The Souls of White Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois
  87. The Spook Who Sat by the Door by Sam Greenlee
  88. The Street: A Novel by Ann Petry
  89. The Substance of Things Hoped for: A Memoir of African-American Faith by Samuel D. Proctor
  90. The Ways of White Folks: Stories by Langston Hughes
  91. The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
  92. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
  93. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima
  94. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  95. Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah
  96. Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
  97. Voices of the Harlem Renaissance: Originally Published as The New Negro an Interpretation by Alain Locke and Introduction by Troy Johnson
  98. W. E. B. Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race by David Levering Lewis
  99. Waiting To Exhale by Terry McMillan
  100. We a BaddDDD People. by Sonia Sanchez
  101. Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine: A Novel by Bebe Moore Campbell