Suggestions on African American litterature

[Kashmir]

Hello
I would really like som suggestions for a novel or maby a short story concerning the topic: The African Americans fight for a good life in either the slave period around the 1850 to 1900, or the later period around 1950 concerning the fight for civil rights. The date of publication is not relevant, the text topic just have to concern the above mentioned theme. Nor does it have to be an African American author (I'm just asuming that would be the general case).
I'm from Denmark and have very little knowledge of American litterature, so i would really like som suggestions. I will prefer that the novel is relatively short, and not to difficult to read, but all suggestions are welcome.

For instance i have heard about the Novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

[OrphanPip]

I'd recommend Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison for the 1950s.

For the earlier period you might consider The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

[Bill 42]

Toni Morrison writes about the plight of the African American in America. I've read The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved and Paradise, and all were excellent. Beloved won the Pulitzer prize in 1988 and Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize For Literature in 1993.

[aaron stark]

One that is less known but which I've certainly enjoyed is D'Aguiar's The Longest Memory

[islandclimber]

Ishmael Reed. Mumbo Jumbo; The Free-Lance Pallbearers; The Last Days of Louisiana Red. All of these would work to some extent. More so in the 1950 period though. And not exactly straightforward...

[cafolini]

The Color Purple ~ Alice Walker
Roots ~ Alex Haleys
Mississippi Burning ~ FBI investigation tracks of the murders of three civil rights workers
To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Harper Lee

By the way, the civil rights revolution really started around 1935 with the so-called Great Debaters.

[kev67]

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (not The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells) addresses many of the social and intellectual issues facing African-Americans early in the twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity, according to Wikipedia. It is regularly ranked in top 100 lists.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

How about going right to the source and read Frederick Douglass.
I recently read his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_of_the_Life_of_Frederick_Douglass,_an_Am erican_Slave

.

[MANICHAEAN]

My earliest introduction to African American literature was James Baldwin. You might like to consider “Giovanni’s Room.”

Stay clear of autobiographies on Mandela and Obama, which I suspect are; ghost written, certainly not literature and which my eldest daughter checks are on my book shelf after buying them for me.

[ralfyman]

Try The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.

[Seasider]

Anything by Maya Angelou but especially "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

[OrphanPip]

My earliest introduction to African American literature was James Baldwin. You might like to consider “Giovanni’s Room.”



It's a great novel by an African American, but it's not about the African American experience in the 50's. It's about a white bisexual in Paris.

[My2cents]

Google Harlem Renaissance, and you'll find enough authors to write a dissertation. I recommend Jean Toomer, Rudolph Fisher, Claude McKay, and Nella Larsen.