The works listed will allow your students to further explore the theme of The Civil Rights Struggle and other themes related to The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman:


Fiction
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1991. A young African-American woman sets off on her own, reaching beyond the limitations she has been taught to accept. (average)

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Harper, 1995. The daughter and son of a courageous Southern lawyer learn unforgettable lessons about prejudice, compassion, and integrity. (average)

Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn. New York: Scholastic, 1995. The classic American novel of a boy nobody wants, rafting down the Mississippi with an escaped slave, observing the pros and cons of "civilization" in the years before the Civil War. (average)


Nonfiction
Beals, Melba Patillo. Warriors Don't Cry. New York: Pocket, 1994. A memoir by one of the courageous African-American teenagers who braved derision and violence to integrate Arkansas' Little Rock Central High School in 1957. (average)

Botkin, B.A., ed. Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1945. A collection of oral histories by former slaves, recorded in the 1930s by members of the Federal Writers Project. (average)

Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: New American Library, 1982. Groundbreaking essays, originally published in 1903, by the pioneering sociologist and civil rights advocate. (challenge)