This February we're celebrating African American History Month with our favorite authors and literary titles. Below, find our most popular African American titles to teach.
#10 Fences
August Wilson's powerful play Fences examines historic racism in America, as well as explores the universal themes of family, gender roles, and responsibility. While reading the play, teachers can explain the contrast between what characters do and others' perceptions of their actions.
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#9 Warriors Don't Cry
Warriors Don't Cry is an autobiography by Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the nine students selected to join Little Rock Central High School, in Little Rock, Arkansas, as the first African-American students in what had previously been an all-white school.
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#8 The Help
The Help is a novel that will provide useful insights about the social climate of the civil rights movement. This book explores the racial tensions that existed in 1960s Mississippi through the relationships of the maids with the households for whom they work.
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#7 The Other Wes Moore
The Other Wes Moore is a moving nonfiction story that follows the opposing dramatic narratives of two different men who happen to have the same name. It is a great book to introduce students to biographies or memoirs. The compelling narrative exemplifies how nonfiction works can be just as interesting as novels can.
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#6 The Color of Water
McBride’s story of his mother’s remarkable life is a startling portrayal of race in America. Ruth McBride was an immigrant Russian Jew who moved to America at age two.
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#5 The Secret Life of Bees
The Secret Life of Bees offers a historically and socially charged coming-of-age narrative for the classroom. Set in South Carolina in the immediate aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, the book can ignite discussion on recent US history and the various permutations of racism, including unconscious, implicit bias, and the importance of resistance.
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#3 Invisible Man
Invisible Man brings to light many of the social and intellectual issues facing African Americans in the 1930s. Besides dealing with racism, blacks in America at this time were also struggling with their own identity within their community. These issues included black nationalism, the connection between African American identity and Marxism, and the progressive racial policies of Booker T. Washington.
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#1 A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun was one of the first plays to depict a realistic African-American family and the struggles many of those families faced during the 1950s. The play chronicles several days in the life of the Youngers, a poor black family living in the South Side of Chicago. The family must make a difficult decision after they receive an insurance check for $10,000 from the deceased Mr. Younger's life insurance policy. The play explores the dreams and ambitions each family member has for his or her future, each one vastly different from those of the others.
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