An Intelligent Black Males Essential Book List

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, and American Slave and Essays …… Frederick Douglas

We wear the Mask …. Paul Lawrence Dunbar   1896

The Souls of Black Folks ……. W.E.B. Dubois   1903

Up From Slavery   ……. Booker T Washington   1901

Race First: The Ideology and organization Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Organization ……. Tony Martin   1976

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man …. James Weldon Johnson  1912

From Superman to Man  ……. J.A. Rogers   1917

The Mis-Education of the Negro …….  Carter G. Woodson   1933

Their Eyes Were Watching God ……. Zora Neale 1937

The Invisible Man ………Ralph Ellison   1952

The Outsider …… Richard Wright  1953

Stolen Legacy: The Egyptian Origin of Western Philosophy…..George G.M. James 2014

Here I Stand …….. Paul Roberson     1958

Black Like Me ……. John Howard Griffin   1959

A Raisin in the Sun …….Lorraine Hansberry   1959

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes …… Langton Hughes

The Fire Next Time ………  James Baldwin   1963

Manchild in the Promised Land ……. Claude Brown   1965

Soul on Ice  ………   Eldridge Cleaver   1965

Simple’s Uncle Sam ….. Langston Hughes …. 1965

Dem …. William Melvin Kelly 1967

The Spook Who Sat by the Door ……. Sam Greenlee    1969

The Black Man and the Promise of America …… Fenderson, Nelson, Austin …. 1970

The Cotillion; or, One Good Bull Is Half the Herd  ……  John O. Killens   1971

Adam by Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. ……. 1971

The King of Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. …… Will Haygood   2006

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley)    1987

Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community ……. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  1967

The African Origins of Civilization ….. Cheikh  Diop  1974

Roots: The Saga of an American Family …….Alex Haley   1976

Civilization or Barbarism  ……. Cheikh Anta Diop    1981

The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership …. Harold Cruise   1967

Black Christian Nationalism: New Directions for the Black Church …… Albert B. Cleage, Jr.    1972

The Black Book …… Middleton Harris   1974

The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race Between 4500 B.C. and 2000 A.D …… Dr. Chancellor Williams    1974 & 1987

Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature – 1980

Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys: Volumes I, II, III ….. Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu   1985-90

The Economics and Politics of Race: An International Perspective ….. Thomas Sowell   1985

The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors …… Dr. Frances Cress Welsing   1991

Race Matters …….. Dr. Cornell West   1994

Black American Money    . Dr. Boyce Watkins   2000

PowerNomics : The National Plan to Empower Black America …… Dr. Claud Anderson   2001

Nigger:  The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word …… Randell Kennedy    2002

Born to Rebel: An Autobiography …… Benjamin Mays    2003

The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life ……. Kevin Powell   2008

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America ……Khalil G. Muhammad  2011

The New Jim Crow …… Michelle Alexander  2012

The Half has never been told: Slavery and American Capitalism ….. Edward E. Baptist   2013

Ebony & Ivory: Race, Slavery and the troubled History of America’s Universities ….. Craig S. Wilder    2014

Light, Bright and Damn Near White: Black Leaders Created by the One-Drop Rule …..Adam Clayton Powell IV   2014

A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life …… Allyson Hobbs   2014

From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 9th Edition ….. John Hope Franklin  2015

Real American: A Memoir ……  Julie Lythcott-Haims   2017

How to Be An Antiracist…..Ibram X. Kendi 2019

Additional Foundational Books for Secular thought & Philospohy

The Teachings of Ptahhotep 2396 BC                          (the oldest known book in the world)        

The Art of War                                                           Sun Tzu

The Republic                                                               Plato

The Nicomachean Ethics                                            Aristotle

Man’s Search for Meaning                                         Victor Frankl

The Prince                                                                   Niccolò Machiavelli.

Selected Essays                                                           Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Kingdom Of God is Within you                           Leonard Tolstoy

Unto This Last                                                             John Ruskin

The Words of Gandhi                                                  selected by Richard AttenBorough

The Story of My Experiments with Truth                  Mohandas Gandhi

Ideas and Opinions                                                     Albert Einstein

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People                    Stephen Covey

David and Goliath                                                       Malcolm Gladwell

Tipping Point                                                              “          “

Outliers                                                                       “          “

The Rhythm of Life                                                     Matthew Kelly

In Search of Identity                                                        Anwar el-Sadat

Outwitting the Devil                                                       Napoleon Hill