Classic Books by Black Authors to Read Now

If you had to choose between living life as a Black person or a white person in the 1920s, which would you take? Being “pretty for a dark-skinned girl,” passing the paper bag test and appealing to the fairer race are ideals that have afflicted the Black community for centuries, and colorism still exists today. Nella Larson’s Passing is the story of two women passing for white — with one living life as a Black woman and the other as white — and their struggle with identity, race and class. If you loved Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, you need to try Passing — and then, watch the 2021 movie adaptation on Netflix.  

Originally published in 1946, The Street is the first novel by Ann Petry and the first by a Black woman to sell more than one million copies. Taking place post-Harlem Renaissance, The Street tells the story of a single Black mother who moves to Harlem to make a better life for her and her son as she struggles with issues of race, class and gender that are still relevant today. In 2020, the book was reprinted for the fifth time with a new cover and introduction from Tayari Jones. Fans of other classics, If Beale Street Could Talk and Their Eyes Were Watching God, will enjoy this one. 

Men come and go but sisterhood is forever, and the story of four women supporting each other through the ups and downs of Black love is one we treasure. McMillan has given us so many classic stories that it was hard to just pick one. But when you can get a classic book and a classic movie crossover, it seems more than worthy of a mention. (You know the GIF.) “Terry McMillan has created a well-written, truthful, and funny story of four African American women…and the sometimes-volatile world of Black female-Black male relationships.”—Spike Lee 

Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning novel is a must-read. Giving us a cast of characters we’ll never forget and phrases we’ll never stop using, The Color Purple follows the story of two sisters, Celie and Nettie, growing up in 1930’s rural Georgia separated for years and the letters they write to one another. Exploring themes of racism, slavery, sexuality, sexual abuse and class, Walker’s story has been criticized by many people in the Black community – especially Black men—and remains a frequent visitor on banned books lists. Another classic book and movie crossover, the epic 1985 film brought to the screen legends like Oprah, Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Margaret Avery and many others. “Reading The Color Purple was the first time I had seen Southern, Black women’s literature as world literature. In writing us into the world—bravely, unapologetically, and honestly—Alice Walker has given us a gift we will never be able to repay.”—Tayari Jones 

Sister Souljah gained prominence in the 90s as a member of Public Enemy, political activist and author, eventually writing her debut memoir No Disrespect. In 1999, The Coldest Winter Ever debuted as her first novel, kicking off an unforgettable cultural movement where all we wanted to do was talk about this book. One of PBS’s 100 Great American Reads, Winter’s story was unlike many of us had ever read at the time — it was dangerous, it was sexy, it was captivating— and we couldn’t get enough. Twenty years later, we got Life After Death, the much-anticipated sequel, and we were immediately catapulted back into the world of Winter Santiaga. 

As affirmative action policies were put into place in the 1960s, Dan Freeman becomes the first Black man to become part of the CIA. While in training, Freeman ascends within the ranks of the agency and then eventually leaves, taking the knowledge he gained back to the streets of Chicago to teach the gang that he originates from. Sam Greenlee’s 1976 novel provides a unique perspective of a Freedom Fighter movement in the inner city of Chicago.  

While many early Black classics center around slavery or its aftermath, Octavia Butler took a unique approach with her 1979 novel, Kindred. A neo-slave narrative that crosses genre lines mixing in Butler’s usual science fiction elements left many people scratching their heads about how to classify it. Her unique perspective to a largely white genre is one that Essence calls “truly terrifying . . . a book you’ll find hard to put down.” Kindred: A Graphic Novel is also the winner of the 2018 Eisner Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium

You can’t have a conversation about classic Black literature without Zora Neale Hurston. Published in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a classic of the Harlem Renaissance, this beautiful, haunting story follows a woman’s search for love, independence and, ultimately, self-discovery. A lyrical novel that has become a Southern masterpiece, this is a story that deserves to be read, re-read and savored.

A lot of “classic” writers lived in an age before many of us existed. But not Toni Morrison; her death was monumental for generations of readers. She wrote for Black people, specifically Black women, and she was the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Bluest Eye, Sula or Song of Solomon could all just as easily have been on this list, every one of Morrison’s stories is a classic. Inspired by a true story, Beloved is about an enslaved woman who believes that killing her child would be a better life than having them grow up as a slave. Many different themes are explored when the ghost of her baby comes back to her 18 years later. In 1988, Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The movie adaptation was released in 1998 and, for better or for worse, is arguably another classic.  

Like many of the authors on this list, it’s challenging to choose just one book from their catalogue.  Published in 1953, Go Tell It on the Mountain is Baldwin’s first novel, a semi-autobiographical story about a 14-year-old boy and son of a minister who comes to terms with his sexuality growing up in Harlem during the Depression. Beautifully and vividly written, Baldwin’s story is one that many young Black boys who grew up in the church and struggled with their identity can connect with. 

If you’re not usually one for non-fiction, please make this your exception. A definitive figure of the Civil Rights Movement, Malcom X’s biography is essential reading when it comes to understanding current race relations in the United States. A fascinating deep dive into his upbringing, his conversion to Islam, and his activism. 

Ellison combines a fluid, compelling writing style with a robust exploration of life as a Black man in mid-century America. The unnamed narrator tells his story from his youth in a small Southern town, where he wins a scholarship to college that he can secure only after taking part in a brutal fight for the amusement of rich white sponsors, to his engagement with rising Black nationalism and his realization that his color renders him, for all practical purposes, invisible to society at large. 

Poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is breathtaking, poignant, brutal, honest, funny and powerful. Angelou has woven together a narrative about the loneliness of childhood and her subsequent search for identity all while having to navigate the injustices of racism and segregation growing up in the south in the 1930s and 40s. Angelou used her writing to heal the wounds of her childhood. A voice that you don’t easily forget, her legacy carries on through all of us who have read her writing.  

To quote James Baldwin, “To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.” Native Son’s main character, Bigger Thomas, is a representation of Black anger in 1930s America. “Why don’t they let us fly planes and sail ships?”  The dichotomy between the privileges of Black people and white people serves as the driving force behind Thomas’ circumstance and how the American dream doesn’t actually apply to all Americans. Later adapted for the stage and into three films, with the 2019 HBO modern retelling as the most compelling, Native Son remains a story that even today threatens the existence of many Black Americans.  

Even though slavery in America has ended, the trauma that African Americans endure is deep-rooted, and the tradition of passing on history by telling stories is at the forefront. First edited by Toni Morrison, Corregidora tells a story of generational trauma, domestic violence and womanhood, and one that everyone should read. Gayl Jones was only 26 when she first published this 1975 classic and in 2019 it was republished, speaking to a whole new generation of readers. “Jones captures the web of inheritances that shaped the lives of Black women in slavery and freedom, from trauma to resilience, and from flesh to spirit. Corregidora is deeply affecting and endures in the heart and mind of readers.”—Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine 

Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress was written in 1990 and set in 1948. The 30th anniversary edition gives us pause to consider what has and has not changed in terms of race in the U.S. Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins comes to the job of private detective not by choice, but necessity. In true detective and noir form, he’s as tough to the world as it is to him. And that world, as in all noir fiction, is a troubled and violent environment.  

The newest of the books on this list, Angie Thomas’ 2017 debut novel, The Hate U Give has quickly become a frequently challenged book and therefore, one that needs to be in your personal library. A product of the Black Lives Matter movement, it tells the story of a young girl pulled into activism and speaking out against police brutality after witnessing a police shooting of an unarmed friend. This May, the paperback will finally hit the shelves! 

Sometimes we read something so fundamentally gripping that we find ourselves speechless in the face of so many tumbling thoughts. Caste is one of those books. Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns) is one of those writers. She reminds us that “we are responsible for our own ignorance or, with time and openhearted enlightenment, our own wisdom.” In this magnificent work of history, narrative, social commentary, philosophy and inspired storytelling, she offers us a new frame, a deeper focal point and new language to help us toward a reckoning long overdue. Quite a gift.  

In what Toni Morrison called “required reading,” this personal narrative delivered as letters to his son and touching on moments both significant and small, Ta-Nehisi Coates addresses race, politics, class, violence, and other cultural ideas while asking and exploring questions that may not quite have answers yet. Evocative and thought-provoking, Coates’ modern-day exploration of what it means to be Black will have you rethinking the world. 

In The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, Christopher Paul Curtis has expertly crafted a story that stands the test of time. Though originally published in 1995, its nuanced depiction of a Black family at the height of the civil rights movement gives young readers important insight into a period they typically only read about in history books.