Favorite African-American Author?

[Zomby Woof]

In honor of African-American History Month, I would like to take this opportunity to extol the greatness of the late James Baldwin.

The first Baldwin essay I read was "The Fire Next Time", back when I started college in the mid-80's and was actively working in the anti-apartheid movement. I read it breathlessly in about 90 minutes (it's not a long piece, but I savored so many parts, I re-read much of it over and over). It was one of those pieces which can change your life.

His short story "Sonny's Blues" is rightfully part of the college lit pantheon, and I highly recommend his novel "Go Tell It On The Mountain", which is autobiographical.

But for me, his non-fiction essays are the essence of what great prose is about, and the soul of the civil rights movement, as well as the best philosophical schematic put forth by any American in the 20th century. When he passed in 1987, I felt it was the end of an era. The long shadow of Reagan's America grew ever darker without the fire burning this time, from James Baldwin.

[Thtwudbeme]

1. Not my favorite African American author, but this poem has always

given me chills....so I am going to cut and paste the whole thing...and then read it to myself while I sip a Jack.

I read in the papers about the Freedom Train

I heard on the radio about the Freedom Train

I seen folks talking about the Freedom Train

Lord, I've been a-waitin for the Freedom Train!

Washington, Richmond, Durham, Chatanooga, Atlanta

Way cross Georgia.

Lord, Lord, Lord

way down in Dixie the only trains I see's

Got a Jim-Crow coaches set aside for me.

I hope their ain't no Jim Crow on the Freedom Train,

No back door entrance to the Freedom Train,

No sign FOR COLORED on the Freedom Train,

No WHITE FOLKS ONLY on the Freedom Train.

I'm gonna check up.

I'm gonna to check up on this

Freedom Train.

Who is the engineer on the Freedom Train?

Can a coal-black man drive the Freedom Train?

Or am I still a porter on the Freedom Train?

Is there ballot boxes on the Freedom Train?

Do colored folks vote on the Freedom Train?

When it stops in Mississippi, will it be made plain

Everybody's got a right to board the Freedom Train?

I'm gonna check up.

I'm gonna to check up on this

Freedom Train.

The Birmingham station's marked COLORED and WHITE.

The white folks go left

The colored go right.

They even got a segregated lane.

Is that the way to get aboard the Freedom Train?

I'm gonna check up.

I'm gonna to check up on this

Freedom Train.

If my children ask me, Daddy, please explain

Why a Jim Crow stations for the Freedom Train?

What shall I tell my children?

You tell me, cause freedom ain't freedom when a man ain't free.

My brother named Jimmy died at Anzio

He died for real, and it wasn't no show.

Is this here freedom on the Freedom Train really freedom or a show again?

Now let the Freedom Train come zooming down the track

Gleaming in the sunlight for white and black

Not stoppin' at no stations marked COLORED nor WHITE,

Just stoppin' in the fields in the broad daylight,

Stoppin' in the country in the wide-open air

Where there never was a Jim Crow sign nowhere,

And No Lilly-White Committees, politicians of note,

Nor poll tax layer through which colored can't vote

And there won't be no kinda color lines

The Freedom Train will be yours

And mine.

Then maybe from their graves in Anzio

Black men and white will say, We want it so!

Black men and white will say, Ain't it fine?

At home they got a Freedom train,

A Freedom train,

That's yours and mine!

[petronius]

2. Samuel R. Delany for me...

Triton is one of my favorite books.

[Aristus]

3. I have to admit, with regret, that I don't really read African-American

authors much anymore. Not a deliberate choice, of course; I just don't. I used to be a big fan of Richard Wright, but his work was too sad and depressing to read regularly.

I read columnist Leonard Pitts as often as I can. I don't think of him as one of the best African-American writers in America today; I think of him as one of the best writers. Period.

[SeattleGirl]

16. I always read Mr. Pitts' columns

My favorite column was the one he wrote right after 9/11. I think it was titled "How Dare You" or something like that. It just encapsulated what I was feeling at that time. His anger came through clearly, yet his anger did not cross the line to the hysterical.

[miss_american_pie]

4. Maya Angelou

[cynatnite]

7. That's who I was thinking of, too...

She is a fabulous woman! I loved her eulogy at CSK's funeral!

[GOPisEvil]

5. Walter Mosley.

Creator of Easy Rawlins and other great characters. His most famous work is "Devil in a Blue Dress" which was made into a movie starring Denzel Washington as Easy.

[Zomby Woof]

8. I LOVE Mosley!

His first non-Easy Rawlins novel was R.L.'s Dream, about a dying bluesman. Very powerful ending. Very moving work.

He is the Big Dog's favorite too.

[GOPisEvil]

9. His new work is for young adults about a young slave boy, #47.

I have to confess I haven't read as much of Mosley as I'd like. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll have to look for that at my local bookstore.

[RoyGBiv]

6. WEB Du Bois ...

That's probably too easy, but he is. _The Souls of Black Folk_ is must-reading for every American.

Richard Wright and Alice Walker, the latter of _A Color Purple_ fame deserve honorable mentioned. Walker's _The Third Life of Grange Copeland_ is excellent.

[myrna minx]

28. Did you know he wrote a sci-fi story?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446677248/103-3403989-4878203?v=glance&n=283155

I had no idea that WEB DuBois wrote Sci-FI! I haven't read it yet but this is a short description...

"W.E.B. Du Bois portrays the rich white woman and the poor black man who may be the only survivors of an astronomical near-miss."


My personal favorite is Maya Angelou. Every one of her works have had such a profound effect on me.

[khashka]

10. Sam Delany

My god that man can write!
Time Considered As A Helix Of Semi-precious Stones - fucking beautiful ( "Thank you for everything you did for me." The only thing I did was put more welts on your chest!" "Yes. Thank you.")

Stars in My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand - a masterpiece.

Dhalgren - the world comes unhooked because a big black man raped a little white girl. He says he raped her, she says they were in love. One of the best books about race relations - is the Kid black, white, hispanic, native American? Is he gay? Straight? Bisexual? Nothing stays constant. And only Sam could make it work....

The man is a freakin' genius.

Khash.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

18. I'm smack in the middle of "Nova" right now

A magnificent work of genius. I finished re-reading The Ballad of Beta-2 about a week ago. Gonna dig out my copy of Dhalgren next.

[petronius]

26. Nova contains one of my favorite book quotes:

"You know the curve of your hand in the hand of someone more important to you than anybody? That's the spirals of the galaxy locked in one another. You know the curve of your hand when the other hand is gone and you're trying to remember how it felt? There is no other curve like that." -- The Mouse

[hholli11]

11. Alice Walker. She's a-MAZ-ing. nt

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

12. self deleted

[SeattleGirl]

13. Definitely Maya Angelou

Though I also like Alice Walker and James Baldwin.

It's not just Maya's writing I like; it's her voice, her way of speaking. Her voice, to me, is uplifting and soothing at the same time.

[Ellen Forradalom]

14. Ralph Ellison

He had one book in him, "Invisible Man." But, oh, what a great book.

[Arkham House]

21. The greatest American novel of the 20th century...

...and that includes *all* the others...

[JitterbugPerfume]

15. Alice Walker ,Octavia Butler

and James Baldwin is wonderful



I am trying to remember---who wrote Black Boy?

[Pool Hall Ace]

17. That was Richard Wright who wrote Black Boy.

My fave? Langston Hughes

[JitterbugPerfume]

25. thanks

I had a spell of old timers hahahahaha

[no name no slogan]

19. Langston Hughes

I read a collection of his short stories when I was in the hospital. Very insightful and enlightening.

[6000eliot]

20. I love Giovanni's Room.

[adriennui]

22. james baldwin

[Sugar Smack]

23. Ntozake Shange

She's a wonderful playwright, but I think one of her best works ever is the book "Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo". I clung to that book in my mid-teens because it taught me a lot about loyalty and individality.

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. Ralph Ellison and Percival Everett.

Ellison for Invisible Man (which is on my short list of 'Great American Novels') and his brilliant essays (especially his writing on jazz).

Everett because he's he's got a brilliant, acerbic wit that at its best rivals Nabokov at his most mordantly funny--if you're unfamiliar with Everett, I can unhesitatingly recommend Erasure...one of the best novels I've read in the past few years; it's the story of an African-American acedemic and literary novelist named Thelonious 'Monk' Ellison. who, tired of being criticised for his books 'not being black enough', and disgusted by the stereotyped 'African-American novels' that become bestsellers, writes a pastiche of Wright's Native Son in 'gangsta' vernacular under the pseudonym 'Stagg R. Leigh'. Much to his consternation and horror, the book gets him a six-figure advance, makes the bestseller lists, gets shortlisted for a major award, and Hollywood wants the movie rights (all of this with a backdrop of the narrator's dealing with his mother's descent into Alzheimer's and other personal tragedies). It's rather similar to Spike Lee's Bamboozled in some of its themes, but there's more going on there, too.

[cassandra uprising]

27. Another Country is my favorite novel by Baldwin

Openly gay and communist in the 1950's. James Baldwin was the man. Suzan Lori-Parks is my favorite playwright. :thumbsup:

[Richardo]

29. Zadie Smith

But she's British, so she's not African American. African-British? Black?

In any event, I love her writing.