The memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) is an account of the life of Harriet Ann Jacobs, who calls herself “Linda Brent” in the narrative. It is a key text in the slave narrative genre, which were first-person narratives written by formerly enslaved people that hoped to convert readers to the abolitionist cause. While most slave narratives were written by men, such as The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1791), Narrative of... Read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Summary

Invisible Man is a novel written by African American author Ralph Ellison and published in 1952. An example of 20th-century realism, the novel combines psychological and social storylines to examine how racism affects its unnamed protagonist and his ability to rise above all obstacles to craft his own sense of self, considering themes like Race in 20th-Century America, the Journey Toward Self-Understanding and Adult Identity, and Alienation from a Sense of Place Through Involuntary Resettlement.A... Read Invisible Man Summary

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Jazz by Toni Morrison is the second installment of the Beloved trilogy. Morrison outlines the entirety of the plot in the first paragraph of the novel, allowing the rest of the text to explore the histories and emotional landscapes of the characters. Set in Harlem in the 1920s, Joe Trace has an affair with a young woman named Dorcas. When Dorcas later rejects Joe, he relentlessly searches for her. Joe sees Dorcas dancing with another... Read Jazz Summary

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Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is the third in a series of plays August Wilson wrote examining the African-American experience in the twentieth century. The play is set in Pittsburgh in 1911 against the historical backdrop of the “Great Migration” of African-Americans leaving the poverty and Jim Crow laws of the American South for employment and better lives in the manufacturing cities of the North. The play takes place in the boarding house run by... Read Joe Turner's Come and Gone Summary

Margaret Walker’s 1966 novel, Jubilee, is based on the story of Walker’s maternal great-grandmother, Margaret Duggans Ware Brown. The historical fiction novel is sometimes described as a corollary to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind—the epic story of a strong Southern woman who lives during the antebellum period, the Civil War, and Reconstruction; though, the Southern woman in this story is black, and her strength comes from having endured the withering degradation of slavery.Plot SummaryJubilee... Read Jubilee Summary

Published in 1991, Jump and Other Stories is a collection of 16 short stories by Nadine Gordimer. Each story provides insight into how apartheid affected the people of South Africa. Featuring tales of tragedy, war, revolution, and love, the collection uses a diverse cast of characters to address systemic racism and offer hope for an inclusive future. Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer and political activist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature... Read Jump and Other Stories Summary

The 1979 novel Kindred was written by Octavia E. Butler, a Black author from California who wrote science fiction that challenged white hegemony. The novel tells the story of Edana “Dana” Franklin, a young Black woman in 1976 whose connection to a young white boy named Rufus Weylin allows her to time travel to 1800s Maryland. As she jumps between 1976 and the 1800s, she learns how she and Rufus are connected, and she must survive... Read Kindred Summary

August Wilson’s King Hedley II premiered in 1999 and opened on Broadway in 2001. It is the ninth installment in Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle (also known as the Century Cycle), a series of 10 plays that examine the experiences of Black Americans during the 20th century. It was nominated for multiple awards including a Tony and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Wilson won two Pulitzer Prizes for other Pittsburgh Cycle plays, Fences in 1987... Read King Hedley II Summary

American author Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) wrote “King of the Bingo Game” in 1944. The short story was originally published in the New York literary journal Tomorrow in November 1944 and is widely considered a precursor to his classic novel Invisible Man (1953). Ellison was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance and is considered one of the most important American authors of the 20th century. Invisible Man won a National Book Award in 1953, and... Read King of the Bingo Game Summary

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This guide is based on the revised version of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," published as the fifth essay in Why We Can't Wait (1964).King's letter is a response to another open letter, "A Call for Unity," published in The Birmingham News and collectively authored by eight Alabama clergymen who argued that the protests were not an appropriate response to conditions in Birmingham.King opens the letter by explaining that he is responding... Read Letter From Birmingham Jail Summary

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