5 Black Authors That You Should Be Reading

HU? We know! Howard University is known for its diverse campus that shines light on black men and women, from across the world, and highlights their passions and hard work. In this article, we will focus on 5 black authors whose books are revolutionary and necessary for any student who is matriculating through college!

1. Toni Morrison

Source: Granta

Morrison is an American novelist, essayist, editor, teacher, and professor emeritus at Princeton University. Morrison is famous for her ability to move a reader through a wave of emotions in her stories. Many of her novels focus on the struggles of African-Americans, of different genders and age, and explore how they cope with these difficulties over time. Words cannot summarize the grace and style that Morrison has.

Books to start to on: Beloved, Tar Baby, God Help the Child

1. James Baldwin

Source: Poetry Foundation

Baldwin was an author, novelist, and essayist who wrote critically about the struggle of being black in America through his own testimonies and novels, as well. In those novels, Baldwin spent time unraveling the psychological implications of racism and how racial hatred left long-lasting effects on the black community.

Books to start on: Notes of a Native Son, Go Tell it to the Mountain, Sonny’s Blues

1. Alice Walker

Source: WTTW Chicago

Walker is an African-American novelist, poet, and activist who is notorious for her book The Color Purple, which developed into an awarded winning movie in 1985. Walker is not only known for her ability to depict racial tension and the African-American struggle in America, but is also for her activism as well. Walker is recognized for coining the term “womanist”, which is attributed to being an advocate for equality that is inclusive of black women as well.

Books to start on: The Color Purple, Meridian, In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens

1. Huey P. Newton

Source: Medium

Newton is most famously known for his revolutionary activism briefly after the Jim Crow era as racism continued to plaque through the United States. Along with the assistance of Bobby Seale, Newton founded the Black Panther Party in 1966. His ideology was to provide a self-defending body that helped protect the African-American people during this period of hatred and segregation. Newton wrote many essays and papers about the condition of black life in America. He earned his PhD in social philosophy from the University of California Santa Cruz.

Books to start on: Revolutionary Suicide, The Huey P. Newton Reader, War Against the Panthers

1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Source: The Nerd Daily 

Adichie is a Nigerian novelist and writer of short stories who has become a prominent women’s author in the last few years, whose work has brought African life to America in marvelous ways. Adichie is a writer for those of us who wonder about our culture before the African Slave Trade, what life would be like, or what customs we would have had if we stayed in the Motherland. Read her books with your eyes, your heart, and your soul wide open. Books to start on: We should all be feminists, Purple Hibiscus, Americanah

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