Black Voices (Signet Classics)

I am thoroughly enjoying the reading of the creative works in this book! In fact, reading the powerful and amazingly descriptive works of people such as Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes and so many others takes me back to a class taught by my tennis coach and English professor, Hammet Worthington Smith. We were informed that we -- the class -- "...would spend the semester learning about and engaging in creative writing..." The one book we used in 1970 was the book, Black Voices. The creative genius of my classmates amazed me! The experiences they shared about family, love, war, discrimination, all the ills of the day including campus unrest of the late 1960's and early 1970's, that was so unlike anything before or since shocked and amazed me. These classmates painted powerful word pictures to describe their very private and unique experiences -- just as we had read in the works in that early edition of Black Voices. So many of these works in the current and past editions of Black Voices speak to the condition of the 'Coloreds', the 'Negroes', the 'Blacks, of their time or generation. So many of the poems I read in 1970 I decided to read again such as Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask" or "Sympathy" "Yet Do I Marvel" (Countee Cullen), or Langston Hughes' "Kids Who Die". A favorite of mine is "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings". I was born and lived in the North in the '50s but nothing prepared this soldier boy, this Grunt, for live in the South in the '60s. You might wonder why I bought this book. The book provided a context as I reviewed the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. I purchased this book as well as recordings of Dr. King's sermons and speeches along with five books about or written by him. What a great man! What he and others experienced made his message of love, peace, and non-violent resistance almost incomprehensible. I have visited historical sites such as the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro and Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. I know people from places like Montgomery and Selma. I am a graduate of Kent State. People know of the shootings at kent but few know of shootings at Jackson State and the dormitory wall with so many bullets the wall looks like a beehive or shootings in Orangeburg, SC, the home of South Carolina State. So, I am turning back the pages of history -- a refresher course starting with the powerfully descriptive voices of these writers in the Black Voices anthology.

I love this book and learning a great deal about my heritage. I was not taught in school about the people in this book. It should be available in junior high and high school curricula for students who are interested in expanding their knowledge about black writers and poets.

Classics never get old. Literature from harlem and 1960's literary Renaissance eras. Highly re-readable

This is an anthology of ground breaking African American writers pre-1970, including Richard Wright, the first African American writer to have a book accepted by the Book of the Month Club, and many others. Superb collection, very well priced. This is "Black Gold" for groundbreaking writers and an excellent teaching aid.

I bought this book because years ago it was a must read for black English classes in my high school I loved it then and love it now

I have used this book since I was in high school 20+ years ago,,,,, great toilet, back yard patio read

I purchased this book when I was in high school ... introduction to many Black authors. Aced my book reports, oral and written. Needed to replace loaned copy.

I really liked it and was very much surprised because I had been looking for it a long time thank you so much