Recommended Reading from President H. Patrick Swygert

The current fermenting social and political environment offers endless opportunities and challenges, as we attempt to adjust, be relatively productive or simply come to a better understanding of our place in the scheme of things—particularly as people of African descent.

The vast reservoir of information that exists through the mass media and the Internet, ironically enough, does not necessarily advance our understanding. Often times, it seems there is simply too much to wade through, too much to analyze, too much to reduce to a manageable and comprehensible size.

Yet, for the sake of personal and professional growth, we must find a way to ensure that we keep abreast of our history and current events as well as feed our intellect and our souls on material that will truly edify. I have been doing this, through thoughtful reading of a select but eclectic list of books, which I have found both extremely relevant and inspiring. I am sharing this list with you in hopes that you too will read as many as you can, and that you too will find the journey as rewarding and exciting.

Blacks in Antiquity (Harvard University Press, 1970)
Frank M. Snowden, Jr.

Africans and Their History (Penquin Books, 1998)
Joseph E. Harris

Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember: An Oral History (Grove Press, 1988)
James Mellon, Editor

The Afrocentric Idea (Temple University Press, 1998)
Molefi Kete Asante’

The New American History (Temple University Press, 1977)
Eric Foner, Editor

A Howard Reader, An Intellectual Quilt of the African-American Experience (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997)
Paul E. Logan, Editor

The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (Penguin Books, 1994)
David Levering Lewis, Editor

Mumbo Jumbo (Doubleday, 1972)
Ishmael Reed

A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks (University of Kentucky Press, 1994 reissue)
George E. Kent

The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson (Howard University Press, 1995)
Sandra G. Shannon

Among the Believers, An Islamic Journey (Afred A. Knopf, Inc., 1981)
V.S. Naipaul

From Beirut to Jerusalem (Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1989)
Thomas L. Friedman

Mordecai, The Man and His Message (Howard University Press, 1997)
Richard I. McKinney

W.E.B. DuBois, The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963 (Henry Holt and Company, 2000)
David Levering Lewis

William Hastie, Grace Under Pressure (Oxford University Press, 1984)
Gilbert Ware

When Hell Froze Over: he Untold Story of Doug Wilder (Taylor Publishing Company, 1988)
Dwayne Yancy

Succeeding Against the Odds (Warner Books, 1989)
John H. Johnson with Lerone Bennett, Jr.

On Her Own Ground, The Life and Times of Madame C.J. Walker (Pocket Books, 2001)
A’Lelia Bundles

A Right Worthy Grand Mission Maggie Lena Walker and the Quest for Black Economic Empowerment (Howard University Press, 2003)
Gertude Woodruff Marlow

Vernon Can Read! A Memoir (Public Affairs, 2001)
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.

My American Journey (Ballantine Books, 1996)
Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico

How To Succeed in Business Without Being White (Harper Collins, 1997)
Earl G. Graves

No Boundaries, A Cancer Surgeon’s Odyssey (Howard University Press, 2005)
LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr.

Mirror to America, The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)
John Hope Franklin

Scholarship @ Howard
www.howard.edu/library/scholarship@howard/default.htm
Howard University Faculty Publications, 1995–. Mod Mekkawi, University Librarian, Editor

A Song of Faith and Hope, The Life of Frankie Muse Freeman (Missouri Historical Society, 2003)
Frankie Muse Freeman

A Proud Continuum: Eight Decades Decades of Art at Howard University
Howard University, Washington, DC 2000