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This & That February 2018 African-American Historical Fiction
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Beloved by Toni Morrison
Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is haunted persistently by the ghost of the dead baby girl whom she sacrificed.
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Sweeps American history from 1941 to the twenty-first century through the lives of four men--two white brothers from rural Alabama, and two black brothers from small-town Maryland--whose journey culminates in an explosive and devastating encounter between the two families.
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The Cattle Killing by John Edgar WidemanIn plague-ridden eighteenth-century Philadelphia, a young itinerant Black preacher struggles to save a mysterious, endangered African woman from a racially explosive society.
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Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy
Buying his freedom after serving as a translator during the American Indian wars, Cow Tom builds a remarkable life and legacy that is sustained by his courageous granddaughter.
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Crossing the River by Caryl PhillipsFollows the lives of three African siblings, beginning with their imprisonment on an English slave ship in 1753 and continuing through the struggles of their descendants.
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Freshwater Road by Denise NicholasVolunteering in the summer of 1964 to help voters to register in the small town of Pineyville, Mississippi, college student Celeste Tyree befriends several locals, learns powerful lessons about race and social change, and is targeted by people who view her as a threatening representation of unwanted change.
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Glorious by Bernice L. McFaddenCombining original characters with fictionalized versions of historical figures, tells the story of African-American author Easter Bartlett's journey through the Jim Crow South to the vibrant cultural scene of New York's Harlem Renaissance.
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Jubilee by Margaret WalkerA novel based on the life of the author's great-grandmother follows the story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and one of his slaves, through the years of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
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Meridian by Alice WalkerMeridian Hill is a young woman at an Atlanta college attempting to find her place in the revolution for racial and social equality. She discovers the limits beyond which she will not go for the cause, but despite her decision not to follow the path of some of her peers, she makes significant sacrifices in order to further her beliefs. Working in a campaign to register African American voters, Meridian cares broadly and deeply for the people she visits, and, while her coworkers quit and move to comfortable homes, she continues to work in the deep South despite a paralyzing illness. Meridian's nonviolent methods, though seemingly less radical than the methods of others, prove to be an effective means of furthering her beliefs.
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Our Man In the Dark by Rashad HarrisonA novel based on the story of a civil rights worker who became an informant for the FBI during the months leading up to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. finds disenchanted bookkeeper John Estem becoming a reluctant detective after he steals thousands from Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Council.
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Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake ShangeThe story of emancipated slave Elizabeth Mayfield traces her rise to the matriarch of a family of musically gifted southern women who overcome brutal obstacles while witnessing key moments in American history.
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The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
by Ayana Mathis
Traces the story of Great Migration-era mother Hattie Shepherd, who in spite of poverty and a dysfunctional husband uses love and Southern remedies to raise nine children and prepare them for the realities of a harsh world.
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The Underground Railroad by Colson WhiteheadChronicles the daring survival story of a cotton plantation slave in Georgia, who, after suffering at the hands of both her owners and fellow slaves, races through the Underground Railroad with a relentless slave-catcher close behind.
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