When Harlem’s renowned Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture asked me to recommend five of my favorites for its list of 100 books by Black authors, my first reaction was, “I’d be honored.”

My second reaction was, “Only five?”

Because how could I leave off such luminaries as James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Maya Angelou or August Wilson?

How could books by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison or Claude Brown not make my cut?

They could have asked me for 20 titles, and I would have faced the same challenge. Why? Because they asked for books that shaped me or inspired the work I do.

At the top of my list? “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody, which also made the Schomburg list.

Why? The Schomburg blurb explains it better than I can.

“The unforgettable memoir of a woman at the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement, a harrowing account of........

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