Diaspora Dramatization

  "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"; as told to Alex Haley; Ballantine Books

Malcolm X recounts his days as a hustler working his way up in the numbers and drug games until he gets locked and must reconsider the path he has taken. Through his own words, readers are able to understand why Malcolm made each move he made. But because of the heavy emphasis on the Nation of Islam and the mention of "white devil" every once in a while. Autobiography haters say the book projects a racist view toward whites and a "biased presentation" of Islam against Christianity. The book has also been referred to as a how-to manual for crime. Before you jump to conclusions, read it for yourself.

"Native Son"; by Richard Wright

Bigger Thomas is a young Black man struggling to support his family and survive in tumultuous 1930s Chicago. Bigger works as a driver for a rich white family and their spoiled, freaky daughter—until he finds himself in jail for the rape and murder of the teenaged girl. In Wright's depiction of Bigger's story, the reader is not made to pity him, only to understand the trials a Black man in America must face. Critics, however, constantly fight to have the book banned for its harsh language, graphic sex and violence, and its Marxist message.  

"Beloved"; by Toni Morrison

Nearly two decades after she ran away from her plantation, Sethe is still haunted by the spirit of the daughter she killed to keep from being enslaved. After the ghost leaves her home, a twentysomething young woman who calls herself Beloved shows up, speaking in the voice of a child and forcing Sethe to confront her painful past. But some say Sethe's experiences are too cruel for high schoolers to read. One parent in Sarasota, FL, complained of "sex, violence, cruelty, brutality, aberrant sexual behavior, offensive language and derisive names." But wasn't the entire institution of slavery "offensive"?  (The Source)

""The Color Purple"; by Alice Walker

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel follows Celie, a poor, uneducated Black woman, through her abusive relationships with men—first her father and later her husband— until she learns to love herself and break free. Some believe that Walker presents a arrow vision of Black men as abusers. The book has been prohibited for its sexual icenes, including one between Celie and her husband's mistress, that many have leemed inappropriate. But the book does a beautiful job of showing a young woman pining the confidence to stand on her own two feet.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude"; by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In what has often been called his finest work ever, Marquez paints a omplex portrait of 100 years in the fictional town of Macondo trough the experiences of its founding family. While many readers see it as a book of both love and loss, a school in Wasco, CA, actully banned One Hundred Years..., dismissing it as "garbage being assed off as literature." Conversely, The New York Times Book review called the saga, "The first piece of literature since the Book Genesis that should be required for the entire human race."

  "From 'Superman' to Man"; by J.A. Rogers; Helga M. Rogers
When I first read this book I just couldn't believe it. The most searing, personal, rational explanation for and dissection of "unexplainable" racism ever. J. A. Rogers' deceptively simple work should be a must read for every American graduating from our school systems. Extraordinary...timeless. International, universal in scope and importance

  "Aztec";  by Gary Jennings    

Here is the extraordinary story of the last and greatest native civilization of North America, at the height of its magnificent. It is a story told in the words of one of the most robust and memorable characters in modern fiction. His name is Mixtil--Dark Cloud. Rising above his lowly station, Mixtil distinguishes himself as a scribe and later a warrior. He earns a fortune as a traveling merchant, exploring every part of what the Aztecs called The One World--the far lands of mountains, jungles,...      

"Yoruba Girl Dancing: ; by Simi Bedford

In the tradition of The Whiteness of Bones, the poignant, funny, and utterly winning story of an African girl's metamorphasis into an upper-class English schoolgirl--with an edge. Bedford, who herself survived leaving Nigeria behind for England, turns her heroine's passage through the labyrinth of race and culture into a bittersweet but triumphant odyssey

  "Manchild in the Promised Land"; by Claude Brown; Macmillan Company

Manchild in the Promised Land is indeed one of the most remarkable autobiographies of our time. This thinly fictionalized account of Claude Brown's childhood as a hardened, streetwise criminal trying to survive the toughest streets of Harlem has been heralded as the definitive account of everyday life for the first generation of African Americans raised in the Northern ghettos of the 1940s and 1950s. When the book was first published in 1965, it was praised for its realistic portrayal of Harlem -- the children, young people, hardworking parents; the hustlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, and numbers runners; the police; the violence, sex, and humor. The book continues to resonate generations later, not only because of its fierce and dignified anger, not only because the struggles of urban youth are as deeply felt today as they were in Brown's time, but also because the book is affirmative and inspiring. Here is the story about the one who "made it," the boy who kept landing on his feet and became a man.

  "Invisible Man"; Ralph Ellison; Vintage Books

First published in 1952, Invisible Man revealed the pain of a black man's existence in a white world. It was shocking then, but remains important literature today. It is the story of a young man's journey--through the Deep South to the streets of Harlem, through events and experiences that range from tortured to macabre. As he moves through time, he learns about the black world, the white world, and a world of his own. His passage is a frightening but at the same time enlightening pilgrimage, for the Invisible Man and for all of us

Ellison won the National Book Award for this searing record of a black man's journey through contemporary America. "Unquestionably, Ellison's book is a work of extraordinary intensity--powerfully imagined and written with a savage, wryly humorous gusto".--Atlantic

Two Thousand Seasons
by Ayi Kwei Armah

Two Thousand Seasons is set in the harshest century of the Alantic Slaving War that for three hundred years devestated Africa while lifting Europe to affluent world dominance. Europeans have come to call that period the Enlightment. For Africans it was a time of senseless human sacifice imposed by the worship of the market and it's blood thirsty god, profit.
This Novel tells the story of that terror -soaked age from the viewpoint of Africa's slaughtered millions. It follows a group of young initiates, eleven women and nine men, as they get tricked and sold into slavery by a collaborator king. During the Alantic crossing they organize a shipboard revolt, then return to the wasted continent to begin their lifework: finding ways to stop the destruction of life, to retrieve a society built on life-giving values.

  "Seize the Time"; by Bobby Seale; Black Classic Press

Seize the Time shows the true colors of an American life. It not only shows the racial injustice but opens the eyes of the majority in our United States. It gives a detailed account of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense from its conception to the time Mr. Seales wrote the book. This should be a required text in the American school system to wake those who might think we have equality. The book relates to the lives of all American citizens the same as it did thirty years ago. It shows the institutional racism in its purest form, through the police and the government.