African American Literature

7 min. PBS NewsHour. 2019.
Glory Edim is the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, a book club that has transformed into an online community and literary festival, all celebrating voices that otherwise might not be heard. She talks with Jeffrey Brown about her original goal of making new friends, seeing herself in literature and creating community through books in the age of social media.

1 hour, 9 min. The James Agee Film Project, 1999.
As America began to confront the injustices of Jim Crow, a new generation of literary voices rose up from below the Mason-Dixon Line—voices that spoke not just to the soul of the South but to that of the nation. This program examines Southern American literature from the early 1960s to today’s literary landscape.

5 min. Ted-Ed.
Two tiny handprints stamped into a cake. A mirror that shatters without warning. A trail of cracker crumbs strewn along the floor. Everyone at 124 Bluestone Road knows their home is haunted— but there's no mystery about the spirit tormenting them. So begins "Beloved," Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. Yen Pham digs into the novel's exploration of the dehumanizing effects of slavery. [Directed by Héloïse Dorsan Rachet, narrated by Christina Greer, music by Salil Bhayani].

California Newsreel, 1982. Profiles on John Wideman, Alice Walker, August Wilson, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor and Charles Johnson.

In this program, writers Alice Walker and bell hooks and Ohio State University faculty Dr. Martha Wharton, of the departments of African-American studies and women’s studies, and Dr. Valerie Lee, of the departments of English and women’s studies, examine the emergence of African-American women as popular and powerful voices of social conscience