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Lately I've been recommending autobiographies to people who ask me what books can they start reading to learn more about how Black radicals view society. People have told me they really connected with the stories, and it lead them to read others texts. Here's a list.
This list is not exhaustive. Most of these books come from my masters thesis where I looked at how people use autobiographical narratives to account for their politics. My project focused mostly on Black communists from the early 20th Century and members of Black Panther Party.
Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Assata Shakur- Assata: An Autobiography
William L. Patterson -The Man Who Cried Genocide: An Autobiography
Angelo B. Herndon Let Me Live
Angela Davis - Angela Davis: An Autobiography
Claude McKay - A Long Way from Home
Kuwasi Balagoon A Soldier’s Story: Writings by a revolutionary New Afrikan anarchist.
Safiya Buhkari - The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther Keeping the Faith in Prison, Fighting for Those Left Behind
Hosea Hudson - Black Worker in the Deep South: A Personal Record.
Paul Robeson - Here I Stand
George Jackson - Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson
Jamil Al-Amin (H Rap Brown at the time of writing) - Die N*gger Die! A Political Autobiography
Aaron Dixon - My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain
Elaine Brown - A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story
Harry Haywood - Black Bolshevik: autobiography of an afro-american communist
Michael C. Hamlin A Black Revolutionary's Life in Labor: Black Workers Power in Detroit
Huey P. Newton - Revolutionary Suicide
Nelson Peery - (1) Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary (2) Black Radical: The Education of an American Revolutionary
Flores Forbes Will You Die with Me? My life and the Black Panther Party
Claudia Jones (Not an autobiography, but a great text that provide insight into her life).
Clinton Clark - Remember My Sacrifice: The Autobiography of Clinton Clark, Tenant Farm Organizer and Early Civil Rights Activist
Robert Hillary - King From The Bottom Of The Heat: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King
Mumia Abu-Jamal - Live from Death Row
Marshall “Eddie” Conway Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther
David Hilliard - The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of Black Panther Party
Jamal Joseph - Panther Baby A Life of Rebellion & Reinvention
