Banned, Black, and Brilliant

This is a sanctuary of forbidden narratives, where the power of words transcends censorship. Here, we celebrate the resilience of black voices that refuse to be silenced. These banned books are not just stories—they are beacons of resistance, shaping the very core of our existence. These narratives have molded me, inspiring a life defined by love and authenticity. Join me on a journey through the pages that defy suppression, embodying the strength of our stories and the unwavering power of our voices.

Two friends who become something worse than enemies. This brilliantly imagined novel brings us the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end?

Sula

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Beloved, Son of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Home, Love

Toni Morrison

Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.

Homegoing

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Transcendent Kingdom

Yaa Gyasi

Sophie Caco is sent from her village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti--to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence.

Eyes, Breath, Memory

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Krik? Krak!, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Untwine, Everything Inside, The Source of Self Regard

Edwidge Danticat

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

Beloved

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Sula, Son of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Home, Love

Toni Morrison

From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

All Boys Aren't Blue

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We are Not Broken, Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I Had

George Johnson

In Jacqueline Woodson's "Red at the Bone," two families of different classes connect through an unexpected pregnancy. Shifting between past and present, the novel delves into the impact of history and community on their lives. The story centers on Melody's coming-of-age ceremony, revealing the poignant history behind her custom-made dress. Woodson explores themes of ambition, identity, and parenthood, emphasizing the enduring decisions made by young people.

Red at the Bone

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Brown Girl Dreaming, Before the Ever After, Another Brooklyn, Miracle's Boys

Jacqueline Woodson

Ellison's blistering and impassioned first novel, winner of the prestigious American National Book Award, tells the extraordinary story of a man who is invisible 'simply because people refuse to see me'. Yet his powerfully depicted adventures - from a terrifying Harlem race riot to his expulsion from a Southern college - go far beyond the story of one man. The lives of countless millions are evoked in this superb portrait of a generation of black Americans.

Invisible Man

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Juneteenth, Shadow & Act, Flying Home, Going to the Territory

Ralph Ellison

Published to unprecedented acclaim, The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in modern fiction. This is the story of two sisters—one a missionary in Africa and the other a child wife living in the South—who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic novel of American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.

The Color Purple

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The Temple of My Familiar, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

Alice Walker

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be Black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post–9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.

Americanah

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Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Visit, The Thing Around Your Neck, Meridian

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Celie and Shug subtly shadow the lives of the dozens of astonishing characters in The Temple of My Familiar, all of whom are dealing in some way with the legacy of the African experience in America. From recent African immigrants to a woman who grew up in the mixed-race rainforest communities of South America to Celie’s own granddaughter living in modern-day San Francisco, they must come to terms with the brutal stories of their ancestors in order to confront their own troubled lives.

The Temple of My Familiar

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The Color Purple, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

Alice Walker

In a dystopian California of the early 2020s, rocked by global climate change and economic collapse, Lauren Olamina, a precocious 15-year-old with hyperempathy, navigates a perilous world inside a gated community. As water scarcity and societal breakdown threaten, Lauren's quest to protect her loved ones transforms into a fight for survival. Beyond immediate dangers, she envisions a new faith and grapples with the profound human destiny that emerges from the chaos.

Parable of the Sower

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Wild Seed, Dawn, Parable of the Sower, Fledgling, Bloodchild

Octavia Butler

Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

Native Son

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Black Boy, The Outside, Uncle Tom's Children, Haiku

Richard Wright

Brown Sugar Bookshelf

Banned, Black, and Brilliant

Sula

Homegoing

Eyes, Breath, Memory

Beloved

All Boys Aren't Blue

Red at the Bone

Invisible Man

The Color Purple

Americanah

The Temple of My Familiar

Parable of the Sower

Native Son

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