Fans pick 100 books like The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

By James Weldon Johnson,

Here are 100 books that The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man fans have personally recommended if you like The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Passing

Georgina Hickey Author Of Breaking the Gender Code: Women and Urban Public Space in the Twentieth-Century United States

From my list on women in the city.

Why am I passionate about this?

My day job is teaching U.S. history, particularly courses on urban history, social movements, and race and gender. It is women’s experiences in cities, however, that have driven much of my historical research and sparked my curiosity about how people understand–and shape–the world around them. Lots of people talk about what women need and what they should be doing, but fewer have been willing to hear what women have to say about their own lives and recognize their resiliency. I hope that this kind of listening to the past will help us build more inclusive cities in the future.

Georgina's book list on women in the city

Georgina Hickey Why did Georgina love this book?

I did not take to this book right away. Both main characters seemed rigid and selfish in ways that put me off initially. When I came back to the novel some years (decades?) later, I could better see and appreciate the complexity of building a life in racist America of the 1920s. The rigidity that had initially put me off seemed much more understandable as a defense mechanism in a society that was largely hostile to them as women of color.

Giving the book another go, I’ve come to admire the way Larsen uses her characters’ decisions (about whether to pass as white, have children, trust the men they’ve chosen to live with, etc.) to explore complicated ideas surrounding color and race. There are also some scathing indictments of whites, particularly white men that raise some pretty big questions about how race and gender work together, even in our own…

By Nella Larsen,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Passing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A classic, brilliant and layered novel that has been at the heart of racial identity discourse in America for almost a century.

Clare Kendry leads a dangerous life. Fair, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a white man unaware of her African American heritage and has severed all ties to her past. Clare's childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, but refuses to acknowledge the racism that continues to constrict her family's happiness. A chance encounter forces both women to confront the lies they have told others - and the…


Book cover of Crick Crack, Monkey

Destiny O. Birdsong Author Of Nobody's Magic

From my list on novellas written by Black people on Black people.

Why am I passionate about this?

Nobody’s Magic began, not as the series of novellas it became, but as a collection of stories I couldn’t stop telling. And it wasn’t just my characters’ comings and goings that enthralled me. It was the way they demanded I let them tell their own stories. I enjoy reading and writing novellas because they allow space for action, voice, and reflection, and they can tackle manifold themes and conversations in a space that is both large and small. At the same time, they demand endings that are neither predictable nor neat, but rather force the reader to speculate on what becomes of these characters they’ve come to know and love. 

Destiny's book list on novellas written by Black people on Black people

Destiny O. Birdsong Why did Destiny love this book?

I sometimes see this book discussed as a YA novel, and it’s true that its protagonists, Tee and her younger brother Toddan, are facing some very typical kid-lit crises: the death of one parent and the departure of another, aunts and uncles with conflicting ideas about child-rearing, and the impossible choice of leaving home for what they’ve been told will be a better life, but what’s better than living on an island with everyone you already know and love? Even so, this impressive novella, penned by a Black woman who happens to be a Caribbean literary scholar, is rich with conversations about colonialism, respectability politics, and the importance of preserving one’s familial and African histories—in other words, remembering your ‘true-true name.’ Important lessons for every age. 

By Merle Hodge,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Crick Crack, Monkey as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The cultural and linguistic complexity of postcolonial Trinidadian society is cleverly portrayed in this beautifully written West Indian novel. Hodge uses the voice of the central character, Tee, to tell a story that begins with two young children forced to live first with their aunt Tantie and then with Aunt Beatrice. Tantie’s world overflows with hilarity, aggression, and warmth. Aunt Beatrice’s Creole middle-class world is pretentious and exudes discriminatory attitudes toward people of color in the lower classes. As we follow Tee from childhood to young adulthood, we share the diversity and richness of her struggle to exist in two…


Book cover of Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Triptych

Destiny O. Birdsong Author Of Nobody's Magic

From my list on novellas written by Black people on Black people.

Why am I passionate about this?

Nobody’s Magic began, not as the series of novellas it became, but as a collection of stories I couldn’t stop telling. And it wasn’t just my characters’ comings and goings that enthralled me. It was the way they demanded I let them tell their own stories. I enjoy reading and writing novellas because they allow space for action, voice, and reflection, and they can tackle manifold themes and conversations in a space that is both large and small. At the same time, they demand endings that are neither predictable nor neat, but rather force the reader to speculate on what becomes of these characters they’ve come to know and love. 

Destiny's book list on novellas written by Black people on Black people

Destiny O. Birdsong Why did Destiny love this book?

I wasn’t far into Love before it became crystal clear why its author fled her native Haiti after publishing it, in spite of the fact that the novella is ostensibly historical fiction. The narrator Claire’s depiction of a Duvalier-esque commandant is a scathing one, and in truth, no one escapes Claire’s acerbic wit, keen eye for detail, and incisive observations about colorism, class, and the perpetual violence that is engendered by colonial rule and persists long after its end. Claire is both an unreliable narrator—she is jealous, petty, and bitterly indignant about her treatment by her family—and yet, a trustworthy one. Love taught me how to create a Black woman narrator who does not have to be trusted (or even liked) to be listened to, believed. 

By Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Rose-Myriam Rejouis (translator), Val Vinokur (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Love, Anger, Madness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The only English translation of “a masterpiece” (The Nation)—a stunning trilogy of novellas about the soul-crushing cost of life under a violent Haitian dictatorship, featuring an introduction by Edwidge Danticat
 
Originally published in 1968, Love, Anger, Madness virtually disappeared from circulation until its republication in France in 2005. Set in the barely fictionalized Haiti of “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s repressive rule, Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s writing was so powerful and so incendiary that she was forced to flee to the United States. Yet Love, Anger, Madness endures.
 
Claire, the narrator of Love, is the eldest of three daughters who surrenders her dreams of…


Book cover of Leaving Atlanta

Destiny O. Birdsong Author Of Nobody's Magic

From my list on novellas written by Black people on Black people.

Why am I passionate about this?

Nobody’s Magic began, not as the series of novellas it became, but as a collection of stories I couldn’t stop telling. And it wasn’t just my characters’ comings and goings that enthralled me. It was the way they demanded I let them tell their own stories. I enjoy reading and writing novellas because they allow space for action, voice, and reflection, and they can tackle manifold themes and conversations in a space that is both large and small. At the same time, they demand endings that are neither predictable nor neat, but rather force the reader to speculate on what becomes of these characters they’ve come to know and love. 

Destiny's book list on novellas written by Black people on Black people

Destiny O. Birdsong Why did Destiny love this book?

I have loved Black literature written in Southern AAVE since reading Charles Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman in graduate school. But perhaps what I love most about the narrator, Octavia (also known as Sweet Pea), is that she’s fluent in many languages: the language of the hood where she lives, of the classroom where she excels, and of the playground, where her poverty is often a cause for ridicule, but where her sassy, outspoken nature is treated with grudging respect. Early 1980s Atlanta is an unsafe place for children: drugs, gangs, and the Atlanta Child Murders are threatening their very existence, and like many of the stories on my list, Octavia’s triptych also ends with a departure. However, her wit and savvy make clear that, wherever she lands, she’s going to be alright. 

By Tayari Jones,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Leaving Atlanta as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the summer of 1979 black children were disappearing from the streets of Atlanta. By the time this heinous killing spree was over, 29 children were dead. This haunting menace provides a powerful backdrop to the stories of three young children fighting the painful everyday battle of adolescence. Tasha, Rodney and Octavia each has a unique voice and story and each is struggling to find a path through the turmoil. Tasha, who is coping with the separation of her parents, is discovering the first sweet pain of a crush on a tough but tender boy named Jashante from the rough…


Book cover of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness

Charles Hersch Author Of Subversive Sounds: Race and the Birth of Jazz in New Orleans

From my list on jazz’s connection to democracy.

Why am I passionate about this?

Music has always spoken to my innermost being, and coming of age in the late 1960s, I’ve been drawn to the quest for justice and equality in politics.  In my undergraduate studies at Berkeley, the late political theorist Michael Rogin, who interpreted Moby Dick as a parable of 19th Century race relations, taught me that my two interests could be combined.  As a professor of Political Science I’ve written books and articles that explore music’s ability to express ideas about politics, race, and ethnicity in sometimes unappreciated ways. 

Charles' book list on jazz’s connection to democracy

Charles Hersch Why did Charles love this book?

Gilroy sees in black music a democratic “ethos” embodied in features like “call and response” and improvisation. This ethical sensibility unites disparate parts of the African diaspora, but Gilroy also insists that the music is irrevocably “hybrid” and “Creole,” connecting African-derived cultures with European and other ones as well. Gilroy argues that black music’s connective ability creates an intersubjective, democratic community which he calls an “alternative public sphere.”

By Paul Gilroy,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Black Atlantic as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Afrocentrism. Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is, Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, The Black Atlantic also complicates and enriches our understanding of modernism.

Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy…


Book cover of All Because You Matter

LaTasha Reynolds Author Of Bryla's Amazing Imagination: Bryla Visits the Moon

From my list on empowering books for kids.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a children's book writer, I want my books to be infused with S.T.E.A.M (science, technology, engineering, art, and science), imaginative adventure, and empowering words. These 3 elements are important for cultivating their minds. Great inventions and discoveries have come from people who were curious. I believe that it's our responsibility as parents to expose them to new interests and speak empowering words to their developing minds. Parents play a key role in how their children see themselves. I hope that my books encourage unity, spark the imagination, build strong parent-child relationships, initiate dialogue, and promote learning.

LaTasha's book list on empowering books for kids

LaTasha Reynolds Why did LaTasha love this book?

"Long before you took your place in this world, you were dreamed of, like a knapsack full of wishes, carried on the backs of your ancestors as they created empires, pyramids, legacies."

The lyrical reading gives appreciation and celebrates the importance of being acknowledged. Despite the challenges a child may face, they need to know that they matter. As a parent, we are our child's #1 fan and cheerleader. How do you let your child know that they matter? This book embodies this message and delivers it with grace. Plant these powerful words in the mind of your child.

By Bryan Collier, Tami Charles (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked All Because You Matter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

A lyrical, heart-lifting love letter to black and brown
children everywhere.
Discover this poignant, timely
and emotionally stirring picture book, an ode
to black and brown children everywhere that is full of hope,
assurance and love.

Tami Charles pens a poetic, lyrical text that is part love letter,
part anthem, assuring readers that they always have,
and always will, matter.

Accompanied by illustrations by renowned artist Bryan Collier,
All Because You Matter empowers readers
with pride, joy and comfort,
reminding them of their roots and strengthening
them for the days to come.

Lyrical, personal and full of love, All Because…


Book cover of Colored People: A Memoir

Lawrence Goldstone Author Of On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights

From my list on for white people to learn about Black people.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was eight, my mother was called in to see the principal…yet again. He pulled me out of class, stood me in the hall for maximum intimidation value, then said to my mom, “Your son has no respect for authority.” Mom asked, “What about that, Larry?” My reply—and this is totally true—was, “He doesn’t mean respect. He means courtesy. You can demand courtesy, but you have to earn respect.” Those sentiments have not changed, which is why, I suppose, I have an extremely critical eye for history, especially American history, that deifies the winners. I don’t think we make ourselves stronger as a nation by pretending our leaders were somehow not as human in their flaws as the rest of us.  I prefer to look under what is called “conventional wisdom,” because that’s where the real story often lies.

Lawrence's book list on for white people to learn about Black people

Lawrence Goldstone Why did Lawrence love this book?

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is a renowned Harvard professor and author of a series of deeply insightful books on African American history. He has also become one of the most recognizable public figures in the nation, from the PBS series Finding Your Roots and Reconstruction to a cameo in Watchmen in which he played the United States Treasury Secretary. It can be easy to forget that “Skip” Gates was raised in the hills of West Virginia, part of a tight-knit, quirky, distinctly African American community. In Gates’ affectionate memoir detailing his growing up, a series of fascinating characters leap from the page—some Churchgoing, some anything but; some strait-laced; some definitely not; some ambitious, some content to do as little as possible to get by.  Everyone we meet in Colored People is both recognizable and a revelation, and Gates has created a moving and nostalgic look at African American culture that…

By Henry Louis Gates,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Colored People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A re-creation of what it was like to grow up in the hill town of Piedmont, West Virginia, in the 1950s and 1960s. Recalling an age at which the town and people represented his known universe, Gates describes the clannish pride of the family and the sense of place that characterized Piedmont, with its beautiful countryside, its paper mill, whose sulphurous fumes permeated the air but brought the town its prosperity, and the social event of the year, the annual mill picnic. The young Gates's consciousness takes in "colored people" in a time when segregation was still influential. He tells…


Book cover of Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness

Stephen Rush Author Of Free Jazz, Harmolodics, and Ornette Coleman

From my list on sound, living, and experience.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of music at the University of Michigan, where I have taught theory, jazz, music composition, and music technology for 34 years. 

Stephen's book list on sound, living, and experience

Stephen Rush Why did Stephen love this book?

She really gets at the heart of how Brown and Black bodies are seenand what is fascinating to me is the approach through current “technical art” and a good discussion of architecture. I had a class focus on her discussion—lengthy—about surveillance and race. It’s extremely poignant, and something whites especially just don’t think about. I will never again go through an airport without thinking about her book. 

By Simone Browne,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Dark Matters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Dark Matters Simone Browne locates the conditions of blackness as a key site through which surveillance is practiced, narrated, and resisted. She shows how contemporary surveillance technologies and practices are informed by the long history of racial formation and by the methods of policing black life under slavery, such as branding, runaway slave notices, and lantern laws. Placing surveillance studies into conversation with the archive of transatlantic slavery and its afterlife, Browne draws from black feminist theory, sociology, and cultural studies to analyze texts as diverse as the methods of surveilling blackness she discusses: from the design of the…


Book cover of Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora

Eugen Bacon Author Of Mage of Fools

From my list on afro-centric speculative fiction from Africa.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an African Australian writer and have a deep passion for black people's stories. I write across genres and forms, and my award-winning works are mostly Afrocentric. I have a master's degree in distributed computer systems, with distinction, a master's degree in creative writing, and a PhD in creative writing. I am especially curious about unique voices in black speculative fiction in transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, writing the other, and betwixt. I am an author of several novels and fiction collections, and a finalist in the 2022 World Fantasy Award. I was announced in the honor list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’.

Eugen's book list on afro-centric speculative fiction from Africa

Eugen Bacon Why did Eugen love this book?

Dominion is a unique black speculative fiction that integrates stories from prominent voices from Africa and the diaspora, including Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Dare Segun Falowo, Mame Bougouma Diene, Dilma Dila, and more. Featuring a foreword by Tananarive Due, the award-winning anthology offers African spirituality, magical realism, Afrofuturistic stories, dystopian worlds and tales that confront in many ways colonialism, social injustice, and capitalism.  

By Zelda Knight, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Nicole Givens Kurtz , Dilman Dila , Eugen Bacon , Marian Denise Moore , Rafeeat Aliyu , Suyi Davies Okungbowa , Odida Nyabundi , Michael Boatman

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dominion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dominion is the first anthology of speculative fiction and poetry by Africans and the African Diaspora. An old god rises up each fall to test his subjects. Once an old woman's pet, a robot sent to mine an asteroid faces an existential crisis. A magician and his son time-travel to Ngoni country and try to change the course of history. A dead child returns to haunt his grieving mother with terrifying consequences. Candace, an ambitious middle manager, is handed a project that will force her to confront the ethical ramifications of her company's latest project—the monetization of human memory. Osupa,…


Book cover of The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches

Lori Latrice Martin Author Of White Sports/Black Sports: Racial Disparities in Athletic Programs

From my list on tensions in the African American experience.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born and raised in Nyack, New York, and all of my degrees are from colleges and universities in New York. I have always been interested in race relations in America and understanding their causes and consequences. Hope and despair are two themes that run through the experiences of people of African ancestry in America. The books I selected include fiction and nonfiction works that highlight promises made and promises unfulfilled.

Lori's book list on tensions in the African American experience

Lori Latrice Martin Why did Lori love this book?

I think WEB DuBois is one of the greatest scholars ever to live. I recommend this book because DuBois eloquently tackles some of American society's greatest challenges. I like that DuBois is not satisfied with contemporary explanations about racial inequities. I am grateful to DuBois for encouraging American society to explore the roles of race and racism and explaining the experiences of people of African ancestry in America.

By W. E. B. Du Bois,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Souls of Black Folk as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches is a 1903 work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology and a cornerstone of African-American literature.


The book contains several essays on race, some of which had been published earlier in The Atlantic Monthly. To develop this work, Du Bois drew from his own experiences as an African American in American society. Outside of its notable relevance in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works…


Book cover of Passing
Book cover of Crick Crack, Monkey
Book cover of Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Triptych

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