Past Reading Lists

2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 - 1991      

» Download PDF of all reading selections

2007 Reading Selections

Ghosts of Saint-Michel By Jake Lamar

The Pursuit of Happyness By Chris Gardner

Jump at the Sun: A Novel By Kim McLarin

All Aunt Hagar's Children By Edward P. Jones

The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty By Lawrence Otis Graham

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from the Colonial Times to the Present By Harriet A. Washington

The Other Brother By Brandon Massey

Ancestor Stones By Aminatta Forna

The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in 18th Century New York By Mat Johnson

The Importance of Being Dangerous By David Dante Troutt

Iola Leroy (Black Women Writers Series) By Frances E.W. Harper

You Only Get Better By Connie Brisoe, Lolita Files, Anita Bunkley

2006 Reading Selections

Babylon Sisters by Pearl Cleage

The Promise: How One Woman Made Good on Her Extra-ordinary Pact to Send a Classroom of 1st Graders to College by Oral Lee Brown

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? by Michael Eric Dyson

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas

Fledgling: A Novel by Octavia Butler

Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagzia with Steve Erwin

Joplin's Ghost: A Novel by Tananarive Due

They Tell Me of a Home by Daniel Black

Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin by John Hope Franklin

Covenant with Black America edited by Tavis Smiley

2005 Reading Selections

Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley

Success Never Smelled So Sweet: How I Followed My Nose and Found My Passion by Lisa Price, Hilary Beard

The Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Esi Edugyan

Passing Through by Colin Channer

The Full Matilda : A Novel by David Haynes

Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America by Charisse Jones, Kumea Shorter-Gooden

Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? by Maryse Conde

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Leaving Cecil Street by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

The Professor's Daughter by Emily Raboteau

Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen

Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors edited by Eleanor Taylor Bland

2004 Reading Selections

The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter

Book of African American Women: 150 Crusaders by Tonya Bolden Rhodes

Getting Mother's Body : A Novel by Suzan-Lori Parks

The Way Forward is With a Broken Heart by Alice Walker

Hottentot Venus: A Novel by Barbara Chase-Riboud

Don't Play in the Sun: One Woman's Journey by Marita Golden

American Desert:A Novel by Percival Everett

The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat

Bling: A Novel by Erica Kennedy

Shifting Through Neutral by Bridgett M. Davis

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson

Shaking the Tree: A Collection of Fiction and Memoir by Black Women by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (Editor)

2003 Reading Selections

Dancing on the Edge of the Roof by Sheila Williams

Douglass' Women by Jewell Parker Rhodes

The Condemnation of Little B by Elaine Brown

Color of Justice by Gary Hardwick

Waiting for an Angel by Helon Habila

The Portable Promised Land by Toure

Sittin' in the Front Pew by Parry "Ebony Satin" Brown

My Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Merriwether

Zora Neale Hurston: Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd

Never Forget The Bridge That Crossed You Over by Adriene Pickett

Mojo: Conjure Stories edited by Nalo Hopkinson

Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes

2002 Reading Selections

The Debt by Randall Robinson

Ev'ry Tongue Gotta Confess by Dawn Knight

The Future Has A past by J California Cooper

The Fall of Rome by Martha Southgate

The Justus Girls by Evelyn Slim Lambright

Destined To Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany by Hans Massaquoi

Black No More by George Schuyler

Finding Fish by Antwone Quenton Fisher

Shades of Jade by Gloria Mallette

Making Callaloo: 25 Years of Black Literature edited by Charles Henry Rowell, Carl Phillips

Harlem Redux by Persia Walker

All I Need by Jacquie Bamberg Moore

2001 Reading Selections

The Chaneysville Incident by David Bradley

Kismet by Dawn Knight

Iron Shadows by Steven Barnes

On Her Own Ground: The LIfe and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A'Lelia Bundles

Dark Matters by Sheree Thomas

The Blacker the Berry by Wallace Thurman

Church Folk* by MIchelle A. Bowen

Bruised Hibiscus Elizabeth Nunez

Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girl by Josetta Rose Barras

Sin in Soul's Kitchen by Andrew Oyefesobi

Cane River* by Lalita Tademy

Chocolate Thoughts by S. James Guitard

*Note: Co-Winner of Author of the Year Award

2000 Reading Selections

No Time to Die by Grace F. Edwards

Mis Education of the Negro (February) by Carter G. Woodson

Slapboxing with Jesus by Victor D. Lavelle

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class by Mary Patillo-McCoy

The True History of Paradise by Margaret Cezair Thompson

Sugar by Bernice L. McFadden

Jubilee by Margaret Walker

Men Cry in the Dark by Michael Baisden

Black Eyed Peas for the Soul: Tales to Strengthen the African-American Spirit & Encourage the Heart by Donna Marie Williams

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

Kinship by Phillip Wamba

1999 Reading Selections

The Spook Who Sat by The Door by Sam Greenlee

The Lady, Her Lover and Her Lord by TD Jakes

Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams

Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler

The Harris Men by RM Johnson

Blue Light Corner edited by Rosemarie Robothum

With Ossie & Ruby In This Life Together by Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee

On Air  by Tavis Smiley

The Silent Cradle by Margaret Cuthbert

Grand Central Winter by Lee Stringer

The Black Panther Party Reconsidered by Charles Johnson

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by  Pearl Cleage

1998 Reading Selections

Straight No Chaser by Jill Nelson

Seasons of Beento Blackbird by Akosua Busia

The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes

Between Each Line of Pain and Glory by Gladys Knight

Keep Still by Eleanor Taylor Bland

A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black  Women in American by Clark Hine & Kathleen Thompson

Honey Hush: An Anthology of African American Women's Humor by Daryl Cummer Dance

Caucasia by Danzy Senna

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

In the Meantime by Iyanla Vanzant

My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due

Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography by Donald Bogle

1997 Reading Selections

Big Girls Don't Cry by Connie Briscoe

Nappy by Ailona Gibson

A'int Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice by April Sinclair

Don't Block the Blessings by Patti LaBelle

The Wedding by Dorothy West

Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime by J. California Cooper

Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Gone Fishin' by Walter Mosley

The Hand I Fan With by Tina McElroy Ansa

He Say, She Say by Yolanda Joe

Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven by Dawn Turner Trice

Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Make by Virginia DeBerry

1996-1997 Reading Selections

The Good Negress by A.J. Verdell

Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun by Reginald Lewis

And This Too Shall Pass  by E. Lynn Harris

How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan

A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley

Knowing by Rosalyn McMillan

Black Lies, White Lies by Tony Brown

Good Hair by Benilde Little

Where Evil Sleeps by Valerie Wilson Wesley

1995-1996 Reading Selections

The Serpent's Gift  by Helen E. Lee

Sisters and Lovers by Connie Briscoe

Chesapeake Song by Brenda Lane Richardson

Brothers and Sisters  by Bebe Moore Campbell

Laughing in the Dark by Patrice Gaines

Black Empire  by George Schuyler

Saving Our Sons by Marita Golden

Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America edited by Herb Boyd

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

When Death Comes Stealing by Valerie Wilson Wesley

Sally Hemings by Barbara Chase-Riboud

In the Company of My Sisters by Julia Boyd

1994 Reading Selections

Ugly Ways by Tina McElroy Ansa

Urban Romance by Nelson George

Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair

The Sweeter the Juice by Shirlee Taylor Haizlip

Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years by Bessie and Sadie Delany with Amy Hearth

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

The Rage of the Privileged Class by Ellis Cose

Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois

Falling Leaves of Ivy by Yolanda Joe

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

1993 Reading Selections

Volunteer Slavery by Jill Nelson

Yearnings by bell hooks

Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell

And Do Remember Me by Marita Golden

One Dark Body by Charlotte Watson Sherman

Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston

Joy by Marsha Hunt

Buppies, B-boys, Baps and Bohos by Nelson George

Nouvelle Soul by Barbara Summers

Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo by Ntozake Shange

Kindred by Octavia Butler

A Taste of Power by Elaine Brown

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines

1992 Reading Selections

The Street by Ann Petry

Bailey's Cafe by Gloria Naylor

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely

Jazz by Toni Morrison

High Cotton  by Darryl Pinckney

1959 by Thulani Davis

Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers and Daughters edited by Mary Helen Washington

Memory of Kin: Stories About Family by Black Writers edited by Bell Scott, et al

Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan

Invisibility Blues by Michele Wallace

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

The Autobiography of Jim Brown by Jim Brown

1991 Reading Selections

Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

Breaking Ice edited by Terry McMillan

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

The Isis Papers by Frances Cress Welsing

Black Ice by Lorene Cary

Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou

Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

The Matter is Life by J. California Cooper

The Content of Our Character by Shelby Steele

The Measure of Time by Rosa Guy

Baby of the Family by Tina McElroy Ansa