Prepare for a visit to AAMLO with these special topic resource guides.
This resource guide is intended to help users locate holdings at AAMLO related to African American literature and prose writers. See also the related resource guide on Poetry.
It highlights holdings in the following areas:
● Selected Library Material at AAMLO
● Selected Archival Collections at AAMLO
Other collections may contain relevant materials. Please contact AAMLO (aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org) with any questions or to schedule an appointment to view materials in person.
Selected Library Materials
An Anthology of Afro-American Writing, edited by Amiri Baraka, New York : Morrow, [1968].
The Schomburg Center Guide to Black Literature From the Eighteenth Century to the Present
Contemporary Black American Fiction Writers
Black California: a Literary Anthology edited by Aparajita Nanda
Imagining the African American West by Blake Allmendinger
Unexpected Places: Relocating Nineteenth-century African American Literature by Eric Gardner
The Other Blacklist: the African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s by Mary Helen Washington
The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s by James Edward Smethurst
Bondage, Freedom, and Beyond: the Prose of Black Americans by Addison Gayle
Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing edited by Amiri Baraka
Maya Angelou: a Critical Companion
Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives Past and Present
From the Ashes: Voices of Watts by the Watts Writers' Workshop
Black Women Stirring the Waters edited by Mary Ellen Butler
Black From the Future: A Collection of Black Speculative Writing
Blues City: a Walk in Oakland by Ishmael Reed
Selected Archival Collections
Black Women Stirring the Waters Collection. Black Women Stirring the Waters is a Black women’s discussion group founded in 1984 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The group was conceived by Clara Stanton Jones, the first African American to head the public library of a major city and the first African American president of the American Library Association, and Aileen Clarke Hernandez, activist, and former President of the National Organization for Women (NOW). In 1997, forty-four members of the group published a collection of autobiographical memoirs edited by Mary Ellen Butler. The collection documents the creation of the organization’s 1997 publication, Black Women Stirring the Waters.
Ruth Acty Papers. Included in the papers of Ruth Acty (1913-1998), first African American teacher hired by the Berkeley Unified School District, is her 1947 Northwestern University thesis on author Gwendolyn Brooks. Also included are Acty's lecture notes, curriculum handouts, subject bibliographies, administrative files related to her various teaching assignments with the Berkeley Unified School District, California State University, San Francisco, University of California, Berkeley, University Extension, and the City of Oakland
Julian Bagley Collection. Julian Elihu Bagley was born in South Jacksonville, Florida in 1892. He moved to San Francisco in 1922 to open a waterfront hotel, and he became well-known as the concierge of the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. He served as the opera house’s official greeter for 39 years beginning on its opening night on October 15, 1932. Bagley was also the author of a book of animal folktales, Candle-Lighting Time in Bodidalee, a collection of African folktales set in his native Florida.
Oakland Post Photograph Collection. Photographs appearing in the Oakland Post newspaper between 1963-2005 include portraits and publicity stills of noted authors including Toni Morrison, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Ernest Gaines, Maya Angelou, Gloria Naylor, and others.
Thomas C. Fleming Papers. Journalist Thomas C. Fleming (1907-2006) was hired as the founding editor of the African American newspaper The Reporter in 1944, which quickly merged with Carlton B. Goodlett’s newspaper The Sun, to become the Sun-Reporter. He worked as managing editor and lead reporter for the Sun-Reporter for over 33 years until his retirement in 1997 at the age of 89. In retirement, he worked on his memoir which was collected in his 1997 publication, Reflections on black history. The Fleming papers include an untitled autobiography, three copies of Fleming's Reflections on Black History, as well as drafts of his newspaper column.
Bernice Middleton Papers. Bernice Middleton (1915-2002) was appointed Dean of Girls at the California School for the Deaf in Berkeley, before teaching at Ceres Unified School District (1960-1967) and Modesto Junior College. The Middleton papers include a 94 pp. handwritten manuscript describing her life in Rosston, Arkansas between 1929-1937. She describes her family's move from Idabel, Oklahoma to Rosston, Arkansas following her father's stroke and subsequent death, their financial struggles in Arkansas, her intermittent schooling and work picking cotton and as a domestic in a boardinghouse, and her later academic success in high school.
Proverb Jacobs Papers. The papers of professional football player and coach Proverb Jacobs (1935-2016) include material collected and produced during the writing of Jacobs' 2014 self-published autobiography, Autobiography of an Unknown Football Player. The book follows Jacobs' life and accomplishments against a background of American history and the radical changes of the twentieth century. In it he relates the Jacobs family lineage and family biographies, the vast social changes that marked his youth in Oakland, his experiences as an African American professional football player, and his career coaching Laney College athletes and mentoring youth.
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection. Selected items include
- An inscribed copy of The First Book of Negroes (1952) by Langston Hughes
- Biographical sketches of Delilah L. Beasley, Saunders Redding, Gwendolyn Brooks, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, and many others
- Ephemera related to literary events including invitations to publication releases, author readings and lectures, and Black writers workshop
- Articles of incorporation of the Oakland Literary Aid Society (1876)
- and many others
Benjamin V. Williams Papers. Include copies of news reports by journalist and television reporter Benjamin Vernon Williams (1927-2012) featuring James Baldwin in San Francisco, circa 1960s.
Faricita Hall Wyatt Papers. Educator, poet, and artist Faricita Hall Wyatt (1912-1993) began teaching history, literature, and creative writing courses at Skyline High School in Oakland, California in 1962. She remained at the school until her retirement in 1975. The Wyatt Papers include examples of Faricita Hall Wyatt's poetry and correspondence and photographs related to her paintings.
W. Hazaiah Williams Papers. The papers of theologian, civil rights activist, and educator William Hazaiah Williams Jr. (1930-1999) include class files for the Center for Urban-Black Studies courses "Emasculation and Affirmation in Black Literature," "Black American Literature," "Religious Values in Afro-American Literature" offered during the 1970-1978 terms.
Additional Information
Search the library using the catalog.
Consult AAMLO's finding aids in the Online Archive of California.
We are working to create new resource guides. Have an idea for a new guide? Contact us at aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org.
