Keep It 100: A Century of Black HistoryLike this list

13 items

• King of Ashes

  a Novel

  Cosby, S. A.,

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  (2025) Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

• Between the World and Me

  Coates, Ta-Nehisi

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  (2015) In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Wind Done Gone

  Randall, Alice

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  (2001) In this daring and provocative literary parody which has captured the interest and imagination of a nation, Alice Randall explodes the world created in GONE WITH THE WIND, a work that more than any other has defined our image of the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• To Make a New Race

  Gurdjieff, Toomer, and the Harlem Renaissance

  Woodson, Jon

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  (1995) In To Make a New Race Jon Woodson explores the intense influence of Greek-born mystic G. I. Gurdjieff on the thinking of Toomer and his coterie--Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larson, George Schuyler, Wallace Thurman--and, through them, the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Beloved

  Morrison, Toni, 1931-2019

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  (1988) Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison's Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past.

• Roots

  the Saga of An American Family

  Haley, Alex

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  (1976) One of the most important books and television series ever to appear, Roots, galvanized the nation, and created an extraordinary political, racial, social and cultural dialogue that hadn't been seen since the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

  Angelou, Maya

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  (1969) The author and poet recalls the anguish of her childhood in Arkansas and her adolescence in northern slums.

• Things Fall Apart

  Achebe, Chinua,

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  (1958) Things Fall Apart tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Street

  Petry, Ann, 1908-1997,

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  (1946) The Street follows the spirited Lutie Johnson, a newly single mother whose efforts to claim a share of the American Dream for herself and her young son meet frustration at every turn in 1940s Harlem. Opening a fresh perspective on the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Black No More

  a Novel

  Schuyler, George S. (George Samuel), 1895-1977

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  (1931) What would happen to the race problem in America if black people turned white? Would everybody be happy? These questions and more are answered hilariously in Black No More, George S. Schuyler's satiric romp.

• The Blacker the Berry

  Thurman, Wallace, 1902-1934,

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  (1927) One of the most widely read and controversial works of the Harlem Renaissance, The Blacker the Berry was the first novel to openly explore prejudice within the Black community. This pioneering novel found a way beyond the bondage of Blackness…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Quest of the Silver Fleece

  Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

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  (1911) "The Quest of the Silver Fleece," published in 1911 by W.E.B. Du Bois, explores the complexities of race, economics, and love in the post-Reconstruction South through the story of Zora and Bles.

• The House Behind the Cedars

  Chesnutt, Charles Waddell, 1858-1932

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  (1900) Originally published in 1900, this groundbreaking novel by a distinguished African American author explores the Southern obsession with race.