Celebrating Juneteenth With Accuracy: Books To Use With Your Students

Juneteenth: A Novel

From Ralph Ellison–author of the classic novel of the African-American experience, Invisible Man–the long-awaited second novel. Here is the master of American vernacular–the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech–at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century.

“Tell me what happened while there’s still time,” demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate Negro preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself. Bliss’s history encompasses the joys of young southern boyhood, bucolic days as a filmmaker, and lovemaking in a field in the Oklahoma sun. And behind it, all lies a mystery: how did this chosen child become the man who would deny everything to achieve his goals? Brilliantly crafted, moving, and wise, Juneteenth is the work of an American master.