I’ve been absolutely swamped with work lately, and because I haven’t had time to devote to making any analytical posts, I decided to start this serialized post. Here are my nominees for “required reading” on Southern history in the category of memoirs and autobiographies. I’ll add my favorite historical works, and maybe even fiction at some point. So without further ado…
Timothy Tyson, Blood Done Sign My Name
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Sarah Patton Boyle, The Desegregated Heart
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
Melton McLaurin, Separate Pasts
Lillian Smith, Killers of the Dream
John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me
James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Of course, there are plenty of other books that I could have put on this list. But I’ll leave that for you to do. Please feel free to offer your own suggestions—keep it to memoirs and autobiographies, though, as I plan to add to this list in several parts. I expect I’ll get some great recommendations, and hopefully some that I’ve not yet read.
Good list–I haven’t read a couple of those–maybe one day! I enjoyed Radio Free Dixie so I’ll have to definitely check out Tyson’s work. I would perhaps add (for archival value) Susie King Taylor’s Black Woman Civil War Memoirs or Ida B. Wells’ Memphis Diaries.
I’d add Will Campbell’s BROTHER TO A DRAGONFLY, Theodore Rosengarten’s ALL GOD’S DANGERS: THE LIFE OF NATE SHAW, which is really the subject’s own oral autobiography, and Harry Crews’s CHILDHOOD: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PLACE.