Vision Circle

In 1998 a number of individuals interested in preserving and propagating those principles upon which the pursuit of the noble and the just is founded, began the Basics Institute. An institute designed to study and propagate those self same principles. Given that any life truly worth living must be based, at some level, on understanding history, we have presented this book list in the hope of generating discussion, and similar efforts on other levels.

The Basics Institute has taken the stance that the history and life of the descendants of enslaved Africans stand at the center of the American experience. As such, classic works which illuminate various aspects of the lives of this community are truly universal in that they deal with aspects of all members of the American family. Though an individual may not be African American, there is undoubtedly something she can take from The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. Furthermore, there is something that African Americans—even Christian African Americans, can gain from The Tao Te Ching. These works are truly universal and speak to not only the grand, but also to the tragic as well. Books such as Political Ideology are included precisely because they speak to the reasons why some members of the American community seek to foster beliefs which are spiritually underdeveloped. And given that some of the greatest American philosophers, such as Martin Luther King jr., or Anna Julia Cooper, received some of their ideas from their European American counterparts, the Basics Institute has also chosen a few works such as Walden. We hope that you would disseminate this list to as many as you see fit, and create similar ones for yourselves. (The works are not listed in order of importance.)

1. Tao Te Ching
There is a subtle rhythm captured here that represents the essence of what it means to capture God in text. Kind of like trying to catch mist.

2. The New Testament
The tension between Jesus on the one hand, and Paul on the other is stark...wayy too stark for my take (I think Paul was a bastard). But the lesson of Jesus is a powerful testimony.

3. The Apocryphal Gospels
Some Christians may not agree, but I believe that the selection (and rejection) of text is a political act. The Apocryphal Gospels represent a vision of Christianity that was suppressed. Christians would do well to read it in order to get another perspective on what God (and Jesus) meant to those professing belief.

4. The Old Testament
Man. Reading the Old Testament one can understand how enslaved Africans were able to take what was essentially a religion used to subjugate them, and find something powerful and majestic in it.

5. The Book of Emanations of Ra

Referred to as "the Book of the Dead." Karenga translates it as "The Book of Coming Forth by Day" but my brother Dr. Caurnel Morgan thinks the above title is more correct. I believe that the true old school lies in the wisdom of the Ancients. The 42 Negative Confessions alone are worth the price of the book. Remember my ideas about discretion? I don't know which number it is, but the Ancients were thought to have violated the right order of things by "speaking too much."

6. The Wisdom Literature of Ancient KMT

See above. The Ancients got it right.

7. Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Harold Cruse

Cruse was/is one of the most insightful intellectuals produced on American soil. Writing in the sixties he recognizes many of the pitfalls of both black nationalism on the one hand and black integrationism on the other. He calls for an agressive "Negro cultural nationalism" that would take the best of black AMERICAN culture and place its material products in the hands of black communities.

8. Shadow and Act Ralph Ellison

A book of Ellison's essays. Invisible Man is below, but Ellison's non-fiction work is important as well. As I think about it Trading Twelves would also be an excellent addition.

9. Plural But Equal Harold Cruse

In this work, Cruse moves away from the cultural dynamic and addresses the political sphere. Arguing that Brown v. Board was a failure (the first person I saw make this argument), Cruse calls for a political movement that recognizes the unique caste position of black folk in America. I am not doing the work justice, but you should really see how he skewers Thomas Sowell in about a paragraph or so.

10. The Miseducation of the Negro Carter G. Woodson

Classic. But miseducation isn't just for blacks anymore...if it ever was in the first place. Woodson and Gramsci deal with some of the same themes of hegemony, of the media, and of the role of organic intellectuals.

11. Class Notes Adolph Reed

Reed is an old school Marxist, fighting the good fight in both academia and on the street. Class NOtes is a compilation of columns written for the Village Voice and for the Progressive. Most of the ideas I have about the way black politics should be analysed (and practiced) come from either Reed, Cruse, or Albert Murray. The pieces I've been writing about Dean? I'm channelling Reed.

12. Beyond Good and Evil Frederich Nietzsche

There's something to be said for setting standards and pursuing them aggressively, and going whereever that path takes you. Nietzsche is lightning in a bottle.

13. Up From Slavery Booker T. Washington

I don't like Washington much to be honest, but there are a few texts that you have to read to really get a handle on the deep south. This is one of them.

14. The Souls of Black Folk WEB Dubois

Dubois wrote this when he was MAYBE 28. Hasn't gone out of print in 100 years. Enough said.

15. Black Reconstruction WEB Dubois

Black Reconstruction represents an attempt to on the one hand grapple with the most important era of our history--the post-Civil War era--and on the other place black men and women firmly within American history as agents of their own destiny.

16. The Philadelphia Negro WEB Dubois

With this piece--an extended exegesis on the way that urban context impacted American life, using the Negro in Philly as the focus--Dubois drags sociology (a baby at the time) into the 20th Century. He PERSONALLY interviewed several hundred men and women in Philadelphia for the study.

17. The Omni American Albert Murray

I've said it before. Before I read Murray I was a nationalist with a capital N. Didn't think an American flag was good for much more than wiping. Murray's work here changed that.

18. Democracy in America Alexis DeTocqueville

Some say we are foreigners even though we've been here since 1619. As noted directly above, I thought this as well. But for insight into what a real foreigner thought, check out DeTocqueville--who travelled around America in the 19th century to get a feel for the new American experiment. The second volume isn't as interesting as the first, but this work is remarkably prescient.

19. When and Where I Enter Paula Giddings

Writes American history from the standpoint of black women. I learned the real story about Rosa Parks here.

20. Testament of Hope Martin Luther King Jr.

It should be made law that no one should quote King without reading this work--a compilation of most of his major speeches as well as his three books (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Why We Can't Wait, Where Do We Go From Here?).

21. A Voice From the South Anna Julia Cooper

A forgotten voice from the beginning of the twentieth century. While in many ways Cooper's viewpoint on black Americans was mired in uplift ideology (if black people acted right and carried themselves right they would be treated right) she still developed some of the themes that would later appear in the work of prominent black feminists and womanists.

22. Conversations in Maine James and Grace Boggs

The Boggs' are old school organizers from Detroit. James passed away a few years back, while Grace is still kicking. They, like Murray, have not only helped me to recognize that this land really IS my land, but that our struggle isn't simply a struggle for black people. It is a struggle for the WORLD. Not just today, but 1000 years from today. Conversations in Maine represents an attempt to grapple with the fundamental political and social questions of the early seventies. They met once a year during the summer, in Maine, with a few other old school activists, for the purpose of theorizing from practice.

23. I’ve Got the Light of Freedom Charles Payne

If the Old School concept existed during the Civil Rights Movement, few figures would be more worthy of the moniker than those who fought outside the spotlight, doing political organizing in places like Mississippi and Alabama while King was on tv. Payne's work tells the story of the real Civil Rights Movement.

24. Invisible Man Ralph Ellison

The American novel. Period.

25. Radical Equations Robert Moses

Want to change the schools? Want to REALLY change the schools? Want to change the schools AND build citizens too? READ THIS BOOK. NOW.

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