Kevin Baker

STRIVERS ROW, 2006, 547 pp.
In WWII-era Harlem, a minister owns up to troubling aspects of his own past through his relationship with the man who will become Malcolm X.

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Allen B. Ballard

WHERE I'M BOUND, 2000, 310 pp.
An escaped slave becomes a military hero in this novel of the Civil War that focuses on an African-American regiment in the Union army.

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Eleanor Taylor Bland

FATAL REMAINS, 2003, 272 pp.
African American police detective Marti MacAlister investigates the discovery of a skeleton seemingly linked to the Underground Railroad.

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Connie Briscoe

A LONG WAY FROM HOME, 1998, 348 pp.
The novel relates the story of three generations of slaves, all of whom work on the plantation of President James Madison and his wife Dolley.

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Octavia E. Butler

PARABLE OF THE TALENTS, 1998, 365 pp.
Lauren Olamina's daughter, Larkin, describes the broken and alienated world of 2032, as war destroys North America and an ultra-conservative religious crusader becomes president.

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Bebe Moore Campbell

SINGING IN THE COMEBACK CHOIR, 1998, 372 pp.
A successful producer tries to revitalize the ghetto of her youth.

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Vincent O. Carter

SUCH SWEET THUNDER, 2003, 537 pp.
A depiction of life in the 1920's and 1930's from the point of view of a young African-American whose ambition is to grow up to be president of the United States.

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Patrick Chamoiseau

TEXACO, 1997, 396 pp.
One hundred and fifty years of post-slavery history in the Caribbean are delineated.

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Pearl Cleage

WHAT LOOKS LIKE CRAZY ON AN ORDINARY DAY, 1997, 244 pp.
HIV-positive Ava Johnson returns to the Michigan town where she grew up, and finds that what she thought might be the end is, in fact, a beginning.

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Eric Jerome Dickey

THE OTHER WOMAN, 2003, 304 pp.
A marriage is under threat. Sex and violence combine with questions about contemporary morals and the psychology of revenge.

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Grace F. Edwards

THE VIADUCT: A HARLEM THRILLER, 2004, 260 pp.
Marin returns from Vietnam only to be assaulted by a pair of brothers in a Harlem viaduct. When one of his attackers dies, the other vows vengeance. Then Marin's baby is kidnapped and his troubles really begin.

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Ralph Ellison

THE INVISIBLE MAN, 1952, 439 pp.
National Book Award-winner in which a young man grows up in the pre-Civil Rights era.

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Ernest J. Gaines

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN, 1971, 245 pp.
This classic is the fictional biography of a woman who was a child when the Civil War ended. She tells the story of her life in the century after slavery.

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Gary Hardwick

SUPREME JUSTICE, 2002, 355 pp.
When conservative Supreme Court Justice Farrel Douglas is gunned down, it falls to young African American U.S. attorney Marshall Jackson to investigate America's most important, and inflammatory, case.

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E. Lynn Harris

A LOVE OF MY OWN, 2002, 288 pp.
Fast-paced story of a cast of characters in NYC, as each tries to find love and deal with the after-effects of the Trade Tower attacks.

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Donna Hill

RHYTHMS, 2001, 320 pp.
A moving saga of three generations of black women in America, from the dusty roads of the Delta to New York City.

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Nalo Hopkinson

THE SALT ROADS, 2003, 304 pp.
Globe-spanning, time-travelling spiritual odyssey.

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Yolanda Joe

MY FINE LADY, 2004, 288 pp.
Talented singer Imani is surrounded by men with their own interest in her career--including her father, her boyfriend, and Orenthal Hopson, who believes that he can transform her from a hip-hop diva to a traditional jazz singer.

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Charles Johnson

MIDDLE PASSAGE, 1990, 209 pp.
A mesmerizing story of a freed slave who stows away on a slave ship captained by a mad genius, and carrying newly captured slaves who are members of an ancient tribe of magicians.
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Guy Johnson

ECHOES OF A DISTANT SUMMER, 2002, 661 pp.
Family saga traces the story of a well-connected family established in Mexico.
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Edward P. Jones

THE KNOWN WORLD, 2004, 387 pp.
A discerning look at how the institution of slavery threatens the very foundations of civilization focuses on a plantation owned by a former slave.

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Gayl Jones

MOSQUITO, 1999, 616 pp.
Sojourner Nadine Jane Johnson, an African-American truck driver, inadvertently joins the "new underground railroad," giving sanctuary to Mexican migrants.

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James McBride

MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA, 2002, 304 pp.
Four American GIs get caught behind enemy lines in WWII Italy trying to rescue an injured Italian boy. The villagers then risk everything to save the Americans.

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James McBride

SONG YET SUNG, 2008, 353 pp.
A beautiful runaway must depend on strangers, and her newfound knowledge of the Code used by slaves and those who will help them escape, as she seeks freedom in the early days of the American Civil War.
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Terry McMillan

THE INTERRUPTION OF EVERYTHING, 2005, 365 pp.
Terry McMillan THE INTERRUPTION OF EVERYTHING, 2005, 365 pp. African American women achieve self-actualization in suburban California.

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Toni Morrison

SULA, 2004, 174 pp.
A friendship between childhood pals is threatened when one of them leaves the neighbourhood.

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Gloria Naylor

THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE, 1982, 192 pp.
7 women living in a ghetto evoke the energy, brutality and compassion of urban America.

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Heather Neff

ACCIDENT OF BIRTH, 2004, 368 pp.
Reba is living a comfortable life, provided by her second husband's wealth. Then she finds out her first husband, who returned to his native Liberia with idealistic intentions, is being charged with crimes against humanity. Will she risk her future to help this man from her past?
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Andrea Smith

THE SISTERHOOD OF BLACKBERRY CORNER, 2006, 312 pp.
In a small close-knit community in South Carolina, one woman's longing for a baby leads to the creation of an "underground railroad" for unwanted children.

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Joyce Carol Thomas

HOUSE OF LIGHT, 2001, 275 pp.
In small-town Oklahoma, Dr. Abyssinia Jackson uses her remarkable healing powers to tend to the women of her community.

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Trisha R. Thomas

WOULD I LIE TO YOU?, 2004, 292 pp.
In the sequel to Nappily Ever After, Venus Johnston is still in pursuit of love and happiness, this time in Los Angeles.

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Bryan E. Walls

THE ROAD THAT LED TO SOMEWHERE, 1980, 261 pp.
Essex County, 19th century – the life of John Freeman Walls, who traveled to Essex County along the Underground Railroad, is described.

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John A. Williams

THE MAN WHO CRIED I AM, 1967, 403 pp.
Cited as one of the most influential novels of the 1960's, this examination of the civil rights movement focuses on the life of one expatriate.

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