How Do You Identify? (Race Identity Culture &Color in Black America)
Explore the complexities of race, identity, culture, and color in Black America through a curated list of essential books. Discover powerful narratives and insights that delve into African American heritage and self-discovery.
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Abraham's Well
by Sharon Ewell Foster
Armentia, an aged black Cherokee woman, remembers her youth, her family, and their struggle to hold on to their dreams.
Book
Passin'
by Karen E. Quinones Miller
Passing for a white person in spite of her African-American heritage, Shanika accepts a job with a New York PR firm and begins to realize that her light skin gives her advantages and preferential treatment that her darker-skinned family members do not receive, a circumstance that becomes more evident when she falls in love with an African-American businessman. Original.
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Incognegro
by Mat Johnson
Writer Mat Johnson (HELLBLAZER: PAPA MIDNITE), winner of the prestigious Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction, constructs a fearless graphic novel that is both a page-turning mystery and a disturbing exploration of race and self-image in America, masterfully illustrated with rich period detail by Warren Pleece (THE INVISIBLES, HELLBLAZER). In the early 20th Century, when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South, a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. They were African-American men who, due to their light skin color, could pass among the white folks. They called this dangerous assignment going incognegro. Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald, barely escapes with his life after his latest incognegro story goes bad. But when he returns to the sanctuary of Harlem, hes sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi. With a lynch mob already swarming, Zane must stay incognegro long enough to uncover the truth behind the murder in order to save his brotherand himself. He finds that the answers are buried beneath layers of shifting identities, forbidden passions and secrets that run far deeper than skin color.
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The Color of Water
by James McBride
'James McBride evokes his childhood trek across the great racial divide with the kind of power and grace that touches and uplifts all our hearts.' - Bebe Moore Campbell 'A triumph...The two stories, son's and mother's, beautifully juxtaposed, strike a graceful note at a time of racial polarization.' - The New York Times Book Review