Introduction

Pissed Off to the Highest Degree of Pissitivity
Sojourner Truth
"And a'n't I a Woman?" (1851)

W.E.B. Du Bois
"On Being Crazy" (1923)

Zora Neale Hurston
"'Possum or Pig?" (1926)
Chester Himes
"Let Me at the Enemy-an' George Brown" (1944)

Malcolm X
"Message to the Grass Roots" (1963)

Langston Hughes
"Pose-Outs" (1965)

Lightnin' Hopkins
"Cadillac Blues" (performed 1968)

H. Rap Brown
from Die, Nigger, Die! (1969)

Sam Greenlee
from The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1969)

Wanda Coleman
"April 15th 1985," "Identifying Marks," "On that Stuff That Ain't Nevah Been Long Enough for No Damn Body" (c.1985)

Hattie Gossett
"yo daddy: an 80s version of the dozens" (1988)

Amiri Baraka
"Wise 1" (1995)

Cornelius Eady
"The Cab Driver Who Ripped Me Off" (1997)

Tish Benson
"Fifth-Ward E-Mail" (2003)

Al Sharpton
Presidential campaign speech delivered to the San Francisco Commonwealth Club (2003)

Mike Tyson
The Wit and Wisdom of Mike Tyson (1987-2004)

(Nothing Serious) Just Buggin'
Paul Laurence Dunbar
"When De Co'n Pone's Hot" (1895)

Bert Williams
"How Fried?" (1913), and assorted jokes compiled by Alex Rogers (1918)

Rudolph Fisher
"The City of Refuge" (1925)

Zora Neale Hurston
"The Bone of Contention" (c.1929).

George Schuyler
from Black No More (1931)

James Weldon Johnson
"B'rer Rabbit, You's de Cutes' of 'Em All" (1935)

Sterling Brown
"Slim in Atlanta" and "Slim Lands a Job," (1932) and "Crispus Attucks McKoy" (1965)

Gwendolyn Brooks
"at the hairdresser's" (1945), "One reason cats . . ." (1968), "A Song in the Front Yard" (1945)

Louis Jordan/Lawrence Ellis Walsh
"Saturday Night Fish Fry" (1949)

Langston Hughes
"Adventure" (c.1962)

Gary Belkin (writing as Muhammad Ali)
"Clay Comes Out to Meet Liston" (1963)

Henry Dumas
"Double Nigger" (1965)

Ishmael Reed
from Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969)

Toni Cade Bambara
"The Lesson" (1972).

Etheridge Knight
"Dark Prophecy: I Sing of Shine" "Memo #9," "Rehabilitation and Treatment in the Prisons of America" (1973)

Kyle Baker
"Sands of Blood," from The Cowboy Wally Show (1988)

Spike Lee
from Do the Right Thing (1989)

Patricia Smith
"Boy Sneezes, Head Explodes" (1991)

Darius James
"Lil' Black Zambo," from Negrophobia (1992)

Lord Finesse
"Return of the Funky Man" (1992)

Hilton Als
"The Only One" (1994)

John Farris
In the Park After School with the Girl & the Boy (1994)

Elizabeth Alexander
"Talk Radio, D.C." (1996)

Erika Ellis
from Good Fences (1999)

Percival Everett
from Erasure (2001)

Colson Whitehead
from John Henry Days (2001)

Willie Perdomo
"Should Old Shit Be Forgot" (2003)

Black Absurdity
Zora Neale Hurston
"Book of Harlem" (c.1921)

Chester Himes
"Dirty Deceivers" (1948)

Ralph Ellison
from Invisible Man (1952)

Charles Wright
from The Wig (1966)

Bob Kaufman
"Abomunist Manifesto" (1965), "Heavy Water Blues" (1967)

Cecil Brown
from The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger (1969)

Steve Cannon
from Groove, Bang and Jive Around (1969)

Fran Ross
from Oreo (1974)

Franklyn Ajaye
"Be Black, Brother, Be Black" and "Disneyland High" (1977)

Trey Ellis
from Platitudes (1988)

Harriet Mullen
"Any Lit," "Jinglejangle," "Kamasutra Sutra," "Souvenir from Anywhere" (1991)
Suzan-Lori Parks
Devotees in the Garden of Love (1991)

Willie Perdomo
"Nigger-Reecan Blues" (1996)

Danzy Senna
"The Mulatto Millennium" (1998)

John Rodriguez
"How to Be a Street Poet" (1999)

Darius James
from "Froggie Chocolate's Christmas Eve" (2003)

Prophet Omega
"I Am What I Am" and "Swollen Feets" (dates unknown)