Encyclopedia of African-American Literature, Second Edition covers the entire spectrum of the African-American literary tradition, from the 18th-century writings of pioneers such as Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley, to 20th-century canonic texts, to the finest of today's best-selling authors and rap artists.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Entries
• A
• Adams, Jenoyne
• Afrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writing
• African American Review
• Ai
• AIDS in African-American literature
• Alexander, Will
• Allen, Jeffery Renard
• Angelou, Maya
• Annie John
• Another Country
• Ansa, Tina McElroy
• Attaway, William
• Aubert, Alvin
• The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X
• The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
• B
• Baker, Houston A., Jr.
• Baldwin, James
• “A Ballad of Remembrance”
• Bambara, Toni Cade
• Banneker, Benjamin
• Baraka, Amiri
• Barksdale, Richard K.
• Barlow, George
• Beatty, Paul
• Beckham, Barry
• Beloved
• Belton, Don
• Bennett, Hal
• Berry, Venise T.
• The Big Sea: An Autobiography
• black aesthetic
• Black American Literature: Essays, Poetry, Fiction, Drama
• Black Arts Movement
• Black Boy
• Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writings
• Black Issues Book Review (BIBR)
• Black Nationalism
• Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land
• Black Power
• Black World (Negro Digest)
• Black Writers of America: A Comprehensive Anthology
• “Blueprint for Negro Writing”
• blues in African-American literature
• Boles, Robert
• Bonair-Agard, Roger
• Bonner, Marita Odette
• Bontemps, Arna
• Boyd, Melba Joyce
• Boykin, Keith
• Bradley, David
• Braithwaite, William Stanley Beaumont
• Broadside Press
• Brooks, Gwendolyn
• Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men
• Brothers and Keepers
• Brown, Claude
• Brown, Frank London
• Brown Girl, Brownstones
• Brown, Sterling Allen
• Bullins, Ed
• Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam
• Butler, Octavia E.
• C
• Cain, George
• Caldwell, Benjamin
• Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition
• Callaloo: A Journal of African American Diaspora Art and Letters
• Campbell, Bebe Moore
• Cavalcade: Negro American Writing from 1760 to the Present
• Cave Canem
• Celestine, Alfred Bernard
• Channer, Colin
• Chant of Saints
• Chase-Riboud, Barbara
• Chesnutt, Charles Waddell
• Childress, Alice
• Christian, Barbara
• Civil Rights movement in African-American literature
• Cleage, Pearl
• Cleaver, Eldridge
• Clifton, Lucille
• Coleman, Wanda
• The College Language Association Journal (CLAJ)
• The Color Purple
• Colter, Cyrus
• The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem
• The Conjure Woman and Other Stories
• Cooper, J. California
• Corbin, Steven
• Cornish, Sam
• Corregidora
• Corrothers, James
• Cotter, Joseph Seamon, Jr.
• Cotter, Joseph Seamon, Sr.
• The Crisis
• Cullen, Countee
• D
• Danner, Margaret Esse
• Danticat, Edwidge
• Datcher, Michael
• Davis, Ossie
• Delany, Samuel R.
• Demby, William
• Derricotte, Toi
• Dessa Rose
• Devil in a Blue Dress
• Dickey, Eric Jerome
• A Different Drummer
• Dixon, Melvin
• Dodson, Owen
• Douglass, Frederick
• Dove, Rita
• DuBois, W. E. B.
• Due, Tananarive
• Dumas, Henry
• Dunbar-Nelson, Alice
• Dunbar, Paul Laurence
• Dust Tracks on a Road
• Dutchman
• Dyson, Michael Eric
• E
• Eady, Cornelius
• Elder, Lonne, III
• Ellis, Trey
• Ellison, Ralph
• Emmett Till in African-American literature
• Equiano, Olaudah
• Essence
• Evans, Mari
• Everett, Percival
• “Everybody's Protest Novel”
• F
• Fabio, Sarah Webster
• Fair, Ronald
• Fauset, Jessie Redmon
• Fences
• Finney, Nikky
• Fire!!
• Fisher, Rudolph
• Flowers, Arthur
• For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf
• Forrest, Leon
• The Foxes of Harrow
• French, Albert
• Fuller, Hoyt
• G
• Gaines, Ernest
• Garnet, Henry Highland
• Garvey, Marcus
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.
• Gayle, Addison, Jr.
• George, Nelson
• Giovanni, Nikki
• Glave, Thomas
• Go Tell It on the Mountain
• Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Fiction by African-American Writers
• Goines, Donald
• Golden, Marita
• Gomez, Jewelle
• Gordone, Charles
• The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities
• Greenlee, Sam
• Griggs, Sutton
• Grimké, Angelina Weld
• Grooms, Anthony
• Gunn, William Harrison
• Guy, Rosa Cuthbert
• Guy-Sheftall, Beverly
• H
• Hamer, Forrest
• Hamilton, Virginia
• Hammon, Jupiter
• Hansberry, Lorraine
• Hardy, James Earl
• Harlem Renaissance
• Harlem Shadows
• Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins
• Harper, Michael S.
• Harris, E. Lynn
• Hayden, Robert Earl
• Hemphill, Essex
• Henderson, David
• Henderson, George Wylie
• Henderson, Stephen Evangelist
• Heritage Series of Black Poetry
• Hernton, Calvin Coolidge
• Himes, Chester
• historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)
• Home to Harlem
• hooks, bell
• Hopkins, Pauline
• Hopkinson, Nalo
• Horton, George Moses
• Hughes, Langston
• Hurston, Zora Neale
• I
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• Iceberg Slim
• If He Hollers Let Him Go
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
• Invisible Life
• Invisible Man
• J
• Jackson, Major
• Jacobs, Harriet
• James, Glenroy Winston
• Jazz
• Jeffers, Lance
• Joans, Ted
• Johnson, Angela
• Johnson, Charles R.
• Johnson, Georgia Douglas
• Johnson, Helene
• Johnson, James Weldon
• Jones, Edward P.
• Jones, Gayl
• Jordan, June
• Jubilee
• Juneteenth
• K
• Karenga, Maulana
• Kaufman, Bob
• Kelley, William Melvin
• Kenan, Randall Garrett
• Kennedy, Adrienne
• Killens, John Oliver
• Kincaid, Jamaica
• Kindred
• King, Martin Luther, Jr.
• Knight, Etheridge
• Komunyakaa, Yusef
• L
• Larsen, Nella
• Lester, Julius
• “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
• Lewis, William Henry
• The Living Is Easy
• Locke, Alain
• Lorde, Audre
• Lyrics of Lowly Life
• M
• Mackey, Nathaniel
• Madgett, Naomi Long
• Madhubuti, Haki
• Major, Clarence
• Major, Marcus
• Malcolm X
• Mama Day
• Mammy in African-American literature
• Manchild in the Promised Land
• The Marrow of Tradition
• Marshall, Paule
• Maud Martha
• Mayfield, Julian
• McCall, Nathan
• McDonald, Janet
• McElroy, Colleen Johnson
• McGruder, Aaron
• McKay, Claude
• McKinney-Whetstone, Diane
• McMillan, Terry
• McPherson, James Alan
• Mengestu, Dinaw
• The Messenger
• Micheaux, Oscar
• Middle Passage
• Miller, Eugene Ethelbert
• Miller, May
• Milner, Ronald
• Mitchell, Loften
• Mitchell, Margaree King
• Moody, Anne
• Morrison, Toni
• Mosley, Walter
• Motley, Willard
• Mules and Men
• Mullen, Harryette
• Mumbo Jumbo
• Murray, Albert
• Murray, Pauli
• N
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself
• Nat Turner in African-American literature
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
• Native Son
• Naylor, Gloria
• Neal, Larry
• Neely, Barbara
• Neely, Letta
• Negritude
• The Negro Caravan: Writings by Negro Writers
• Nelson, Jill
• The New Negro: An Interpretation
• Nigger Heaven
• Nugent, Richard Bruce
• Nuñez, Elizabeth
• O
• Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life
• Our Nig
• P
• Parable of the Sower
• Parker, Gwendolyn
• Parker, Pat
• Parks, Gordon
• Parks, Suzan-Lori
• Pawley, Thomas W., Jr.
• Perry, Richard H.
• Peterson, Louis Stamford, Jr.
• Petry, Ann
• Pharr, Robert Deane
• Philadelphia Fire
• Phillips, Carl
• Plumpp, Sterling
• Polite, Carlene Hatcher
• Powell, Kevin
• Powell, Patricia
• Purlie Victorious
• The Quest of the Silver Fleece
• R
• Rachel
• A Raisin in the Sun
• Randall, Dudley
• Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology
• Redding, Jay Saunders
• Redmond, Eugene B.
• Reed, Ishmael
• Rhodes, Jewell Parker
• Ringgold, Faith
• Rodgers, Carolyn M.
• Ross, Frances Delores
• S
• Saint, Assotto
• Saint James, Synthia
• Salaam, Kalamu
• Sambo and Uncle Tom in African-American literature
• Sanchez, Sonia
• Sapphire
• Schuyler, George
• Scott-Heron, Gil
• Senna, Danzy
• Shade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent
• Shakur, Tupac
• Shange, Ntozake
• Shepherd, Reginald
• Sherman, Charlotte Watson
• The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism
• Simmons, Judy Dothard
• Sinclair, April
• Slade, Leonard, Jr.
• Smith, William Gardner
• “Smoke, Lilies and Jade”
• “Sonny's Blues”
• Soul on Ice
• Souljah, Sister
• The Souls of Black Folk
• Southern Road
• The Sport of the Gods
• “Spunk”
• Staples, Brent
• Steptoe, John Lewis
• The Stone Face
• The Street
• Sula
• T
• Tademy, Lalita
• Tervalon, Jervey
• testifying in African-American literature
• Their Eyes Were Watching God
• There Is Confusion
• The Third Life of Grange Copeland
• Third World Press
• This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
• Thomas, Joyce Carol
• Thomas, Lorenzo
• Thomas, Trisha R.
• Thurman, Wallace
• Tolson, Melvin B.
• Toomer, Jean
• Touré, Askia Muhammad
• Train Whistle Guitar
• tricksters in African-American literature
• Tropic Death
• Troupe, Quincy
• Truth, Sojourner
• Turner, Darwin T.
• Turpin, Waters E.
• Tyree, Omar
• U
• Up from Slavery
• V
• Van Peebles, Melvin
• Van Vechten, Carl
• A Visitation of Spirits
• W
• Walker, Alice
• Walker, David
• Walker, Margaret
• Walrond, Eric
• Ward, Douglas Turner
• Ward, Jesmyn
• Washington, Booker T.
• Watts Writers Workshop
• The Ways of White Folks
• Weaver, Afaa Michael
• Weber, Carl
• Wells, Ida B.
• West, Cornel
• West, Dorothy
• What You Owe Me
• Wheatley, Phillis
• White, Paulette Childress
• White, Walter
• Whitehead, Colson
• Wideman, John Edgar
• Williams, John Alfred
• Williams, Sherley Anne
• Wilson, August
• Wilson, Harriet
• The Wind Done Gone
• Wolfe, George C.
• womanist/womanish
• The Women of Brewster Place
• Woodson, Jacqueline Amanda
• Wright, Charles Stevenson
• Wright, Jay
• Wright, Richard
• Wright, Sarah Elizabeth
• Y
• Yerby, Frank
• Young, Al
• Young, Kevin
• Youngblood, Shay
• Z
• Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography
• Zane
• Support Materials
• Major Works by African-American Writers
• Bibliography of Secondary Sources
• Contributors