10 Books African-Americans Should Read & Have in the Home

Today, at 5PM EST, I’ll be participating in a live interview with Paul Billings host of the “The Beat” on WUVS-LP 103.7FM  located in West Michigan. (You may listen on-line at http://1037thebeat.com).

Paul Billings is doing a special series on radio titled “14 Days of Thought Provoking Topics”.  Each day different topics relevant to the Black Community are addressed.   Today the topic is: “10 Books African- Americans should read & have in the home”.

Of course this is a big topic.  One could easily come up wth 100 books African Americans should read & have in the home.  When thinking about the 10 books I would recommend I began to reflect on a poem I heard the Nigeria writer Ben Okri recite recently (video below).

In fact, whenever I consider the next book to read, I reflect Ben’s simple yet deep poem. The titles I recommend, I hope, will reflect, at least partically the spirit of Ben’s poem.

I can’t help but believe if we could get 25 percent of adults to read in the manner Ben describes, that the world would be a much better place.