Anthologies of African American Writing

Black Literature in America

"Black Literature in America" . Comp. Houston A. Baker, Jr. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971. xvi+443 pp.

Black American Literature: An Overview -- Black Folklore -- References -- "Sheer Crops" -- "Ole Sis Goose" -- "De Knee-high man" -- "Why Br' Gator's Hide Is So Horny" -- "How Buck Won His Freedom" -- "Swapping Dreams" -- "A Laugh That Meant Freedom" -- "The Wounds of Jesus" -- "God Struck Me Dead" -- "Motherless Child" -- "Go Down, Moses" -- "The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy" -- "Oh Mary, Don't You Weep" -- "Deep River" -- "Steal Away" -- "John Henry" -- "Stackalee" -- "Good Morning Blues" -- "Southern Blues" -- "How Long Blues" -- Up from Slavery -- References -- Article II Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Ignorance from Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World / David Walker -- Chapter X from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself / Frederick Douglass -- Chapter XIV: "The Atlantic Exposition Address" from Up from Slavery / Booker T. Washington -- Chapter III: "Of Booker T. Washington and Others" from The Souls of Black Folk / W.E.B. Du Bois -- Early Poetry, Fiction, and Criticism -- References -- "Philosopy" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "Jealous" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "Slow through the Dark" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "Not They Who Soar" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "When Malindy Sings" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "Scamp" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "Why Fades a Dream?" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "We Wear the Mask" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "The Real Question" / Paul Laurence Dumbar -- "The Bouquet" / Charles W. Chestnutt -- "Tired" / Fenton Johnson -- "The Scarlet Woman" / Fenton Johnson -- "The Riddle of the Sphinx" / W.E.B. Du Bois -- "The Negro in American Fiction" from The Negro in Literature and Art / Benajamin Brawley -- "The Black Mammy" / James Weldon Johnson -- "O Black and Unkown Bards" -- The Renaissance of the Twenties -- References -- "The New Negro" from The New Negro / Alain Locke -- "Yet Do I Marvel" / Countee Cullen -- "Heritage" / Coutnee Cullen -- "Saturday's Child / Countee Cullen -- "Black Magdalens" / Countee Cullen -- "A Song of Praise" / Countee Cullen -- "Avey" from Cane / Jean Toomer -- "Georgia Dusk" from Cane / Jean Toomer -- "Son of the Son" from Cane / Jean Toomer -- "Storm Ending" from Cane / Jean Toomer -- "If We Must Die" / Claude McKay -- "The Lynching" / Claude McKay -- "America" / Claude McKay -- "The City's Love" / Claude McKay -- "The Harlem Dancer" / Claude McKay -- "The Negro's Tragedy / Claude McKay -- "Jasmine" / Claude McKay -- "Home Thoughts" / Claude McKay -- "Tiger" / Claude McKay -- "The CIty of Refuge" / Rudolph Fister -- From Preface to the first edition of The Book of American Negro Poetry / James Weldon Johnson -- "Go Down Death-a Funeral Sermon" from God's Trombones / James Weldon Johnson -- "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes / "Refugee in America / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes / "I, Too" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes / "Troubled Woman" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Silhouette" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Dream Variations" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughs / "One-way Ticket" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Brass Spitoons" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Jazzonia" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Montmartre" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Montmartre" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Good Morning" from Montgage of a Dream Deferred / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Same in Blues" from Montage of a Dream Deferred / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Letter" from Montage of a Dream Deferred / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Island" from Montage of a Dream Deferred / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- "Undertow" / Langston [James Mercer] Hughes -- The Thiries and Forties -- References -- "A Summer Tragedy" / Arna Bontemps -- "Nocturne at Bethesda" / Arna Bontemps -- "Southern Mansion" / Arna Bontemps -- "Reconnaissance" / Arna Bontemps -- "Sister Lou" / Sterling A. Brown -- "Children of the Mississippi / Sterling A. Brown -- Chapter II "The American Race Problem as Reflected in American Literature" from The Journal of Negro Education / Sterling A. Brown -- "Dark Symphony" / Melvin Tolson -- "Psi" / Melvin Tolson -- "A Ballad of Rememberance" / Robert Hayden -- "Tour 5" / Robert Hayden -- "Middle Passage" / Robert Hayden -- "Rag Doll and Summer birds" / Owen Dodson -- "Counterpoint" / Owen Dodson -- "For My People" / Margaret Walker -- "Like a Winding Sheet" / Ann Petry -- "Bright and Morning Star" from Uncle Tom's Children / Richard Wright -- "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow / Richard Wright -- The Fifties and Sixties -- References -- "Many Thousands Gone" from Notes of a Native Son / James Baldwin -- "A Coupla Scalped Indians" from New World Writing / Ralph Ellision -- "A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanswhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon." from The Bean Eaters "The Second Sermon on the Warplant" from In the Mecca / Gwendolyn Brooks -- "Ballad of Birmingham" from Poem Counterpoem / Dudley Randall -- "Primitives" from Cities Burning / Dudley Randall -- "God Bless America" from The California Quarterly / John O. Killens -- "Son in the Afternoon" from The Angry Black / John A. Williams -- "Status Symbol" from Poets of Today / Mari Evans -- "I Am a Blac Woman" from Negro Digest / Mari Evans -- "The Negro Writer and His Relationship to His Roots" from The Negro Writer and His Roots / Jay Saunders Redding -- "Four Sheets to the Wind and a One-way Ticket to France, 1933" from These Black Bodies and This Sunburnt Face" / Conrad Kent Rivers -- "Africa" from These Black Bodies and This Sunburnt Face / Conrad Kent Rivers -- "Barbados" from Soul Clap Hands and Sing / Paule Marshall -- "Cultural Strangulation: Black Literature and the White Aesthetic" from Negro Digest / Addison Gaye -- "Cry for Me" from Dancers on the Shore / William Melvin Kelley -- "The Unbiquitous Lions" from Black Pow-wow / Ted Joans -- "In Homage to Heavy Loaded Trane, J.C." from Black Pow-wow / Ted Joans -- "The role of the Negro Writer in an Era of Struggle" from Negro Digest / Hoyt Fuller -- "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" from Preface to a T wenty Volume Suicide Note / LeRoi James -- "I Substitute for the Dead Lecturer" from The Dead Lecturer / LeRoi James -- "The Politics of Rich Painters" from The Dead Lecturer / LeRoi Jones -- "Black Art" from Black Magic Poetry 1961-1967 / LeRoi Jones -- "Black People" from Black Magic Poetry 1961-1967 / LeRoi Jones -- "Love Song in Middle Passage" from Black Boogaloo (Notes on Black Liberation) / Larry Neal -- "Garvey's Ghost" from Black Boogaloo (Notes on Black Liberation) / Larry Neal -- "Chapter Nineteen: "1965" from The Autobiography of Malcolm X / Malcolm X -- "Into the Mainstream and Oblivion" from The American Negro Writer and His Roots / Julian Mayfield -- "Back Home Again" from Think Black / Don L. Lee -- "Introduction" from Think Black / Don L. Lee -- "A Poem for Black Minds" from Black Pride / Don L. Lee -- "Assassination" from Don't Cry, Scream / Don L. Lee -- "Hard Rock Returns to Prison fro the Hospital for the Criminal Insane" from Poems from Prison / Etheridge Knight -- "The Violent Space" from Poems from Prison / Etheridge Knight -- "It Was a Funky Deal" from Poems from Prision / Etheridge Knight. – Bio-bibliographical sketches of the 43 authors included in the anthology (pp. 426-43).

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• "At the end of the introduction of each of the sections (except the general introduction), Baker gives a very good selected list of secondary sources (with occasional annotations) on the writers and the writing of the period" (Rowell 1972: 30).
• "Still in his twenties, [Houston A.] Baker was already on his way toward a black aesthetic, arguing that an anthology in the new field must 'include standards that are indigenous to black American literature' as well as 'existing critical standards.' Baker begins with folklore, omits 18th-century writers, and includes only six 19th-century authors before moving to his ampler representation of 20th-century works. He provides introductions and reading lists for each chronological section and concludes with bibliographical sketches of his forty-three authors" (Kinnamon 1997: 463).

• Kallenbach 1979
• [Kinnamon 1997: 463]

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