Black Authors

First published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk is a masterpiece of American literature, a foundational text of sociology, and a deeply personal ...

Booker T. Washington’s famous 1901 memoir, Up From Slavery, charts Washington’s rise from an enslaved child with a passion for learning to the na...

Born on a Maryland plantation, Frederick Douglass—born Frederick Bailey—doesn’t know the year of his birth. Separated from his mother in infancy,...