In A Gathering of Old Men, Ernest Gaines's 1983 novel, a white Cajun work boss is found shot in a black man's yard. Nineteen elderly black men and a young white woman all claim responsibility for the murder ill order to thwart the expected lynch mob.

Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon (1977) is the story of Milkman Dead's quest for identity and how he discovers his own courage, endurance, and capacity for love and joy when he discovers his connection with his ancestors.

Mark Twain's 1884 popular and sometimes controversial classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn follows the satirical adventures and moral development of Huck Finn, a young white boy, as he accompanies Jim, an escaped slave, down the Mississippi River in a quest for freedom.

Uncle Tom's Children, a 1938 collection of stones by Richard Wright, relates how African Americans struggle...