I’ve been thinking and researching a lot about the (Black) Southern Gothic style/aesthetic and African American folklore, so I put together a list of books for myself and thought it might be helpful to someone else.
The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales by Virginia Hamilton | Thrift Books Amazon
Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton | Amazon
Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston | Amazon Thrift Books
Every Tongue Got to Confess : Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States by Zora Neale Hurston | Thrift Books Amazon
Go Gator and Muddy the Water : Writings by Zora Neale Hurston from the Federal Writers Project by Zora Neale Hurston | Thrift Books Amazon
Lies and Other Tall Tales by Zora Neale Hurston and Joyce Carol Thomas | Thrift Books Amazon
FOLKLORE AND STORYTELLING
Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom by Lawrence W. Levine | Thrift Books
Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemporary Black Americans | Thrift Books Amazon
A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore: The Oral Literature, Traditions, Recollections, Legends, Tales, Songs, Religious Beliefs, Customs, Sayings and Humor of Peoples of African American Descent in the Americas by Harold Courlander | Amazon
The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness by Kevin Young | Amazon
Talk That Talk: An Anthology on African-American Storytelling by Linda Goss | Amazon
African American Folktales: Stories from Black Traditions in the New World by Roger Abrahams | Amazon
Deep Down in the Jungle: Black American Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia by Roger Abrahams | Amazon
Singing the Master : The Emergence of African-American Culture in the Plantation South by Roger D. Abrahams | Thrift Books Amazon
From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom by John W. Roberts | Amazon
Black Folklore and the Politics of Racial Representation by Shirley Moody-Turner | Amazon
Black Folktales by Julius Lester | Amazon
Folk beliefs of the southern Negro (1926) by Newbell Niles Pucket | Amazon
Black Folklore and the Politics of Racial Representation by Shirley Moody-Turner | Amazon
African American Humor: The Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today (The Library of Black America series) by Mel Watkins, Dick Gregory | Amazon
Honey, Hush!: An Anthology of African American Women’s Humor by Daryl Cumber Dance, Nikki Giovanni | Amazon
The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora by Carol Tulloch | Amazon
Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness by Rebecca Walker, Henry Louis Gates Jr. | Amazon
African American Female Mysticism: Nineteenth-Century Religious Activism by Joy R. Bostic | Amazon
Working Conjure: A Guide to Hoodoo Folk Magic by Hoodoo Sen Moise | Amazon
Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition by Ifalaye Books | Amazon
Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing by Michele Elizabeth Lee | Amazon
African American Slave Medicine: Herbal and nonHerbal Treatments by Herbert C. Cove | Amazon
African American Folk Healing by Stephanie Mitchem | Amazon
This is absolutely not a definitive list and if you have more information or recommendations please feel free to add it!
baratheonpilled
ellievsbear
areudirty
stormborns
janainaart
yousharknotpass
