The Gantt Report, By Lucius Gantt
The Gantt Report Book Club has only one member, me. I thought the club title would have some significance because when Oprah Winfrey talked about books in her book club, many of the writings subsequently became best sellers and made top 10 lists in newspapers like The New York Times.
Well, I’m not Oprah and my favorite books won’t make any best seller lists but my books will motivate, inspire and educate my readers.
Readers that know me know that I don’t usually read opinions from other columnists. I completed two graduate school programs, one in science and one in journalism, but I don’t consider myself a scholar and I don’t write editorials to please scholars.
Some of the columnists that you love are motivated by the writings of Grimm, Aesop, Hans Christian Anderson and J.K. Rowling. Those writings, in my mind, are basically fairy tales.
I get my inspirations from writers like John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish, Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey.
The Gantt Report style is very unique. TGR is often imitated but can never be duplicated! My writings can be read and enjoyed by every Black man or woman regardless of their status, education, income or literary interests. I’ve been told TGR is the most favored column read in America’s prisons and penitentiaries.
You can remove my name from a column and Gantt Report fans won’t be misled or bamboozled, they’ll say, “That’s Lucius Gantt!” I’ve used pen names in columns I’ve written and I didn’t fool anyone.
Today, I want to share some book titles that helped to create The Gantt Report messages. What I write has oftentimes been written or said long before I came on the editorial scene.
Hopefully, you will be interested in reading what I read. Perhaps, you’ll be just as informed and entertained as I was.
Let’s go. Some books I read are listed below:
“The Book of the Dead”, introduction by E.A. Wallis Budge
“African Origins of the Major Western Religions”, by Yosef Ben. Jochannan
“Is God a White Racist”, by William R. Jones
“The Original Maccabees Bible”, preface by Rev. Roderick McLean, PhD
“Black God” by Julian Baldick
“The Yoruba Handbook of Yoruba Religious Concepts”, by Baba Ifa Karade
“World’s Great Men of Color”, by J.A. Rodgers (Vol. I and II)
“Classical Black Nationalism”, by Wilson Jeremiah Moses
“Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, by John Perkins
“How To Disappear”, by Frank Ahearn
“How to be Invisible”, by J. J. Luna
“The Mis-Education of the Negro”, by Carter G. Woodson
“Nigger”, by Randall Kennedy
“White Tribe Dreaming”, by Marq de Villiers
“I Write What I Like”, by Steve Biko
‘The Book of Khallid”, by Malik Zulu Shabazz
“The Dismantling of Global White Privilege” by Chandran Nair
“The Crisis Writings” by W.E.B. Dubois
“The Isis Papers”, by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing
“Black Power”, by Stokely Carmichael
“To Die for the People”, by Huey Newton
“The End of White Supremacy”, by Malcolm X
“Blood in my Eye”, by George Jackson
“Denmark Vesey”, by David Robertson
“Soul on Ice”, by Eldridge Cleaver
“If They Come in the Morning”, by Angela Davis
“Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music”, by Frank Kofsky
I could go on and on but I want to keep this column TGR lengthwise. Obviously, I need to follow up with more titles by African freedom fighters like Nkrumah, Nyerere, Cabral, Selassie and others.
I also encourage you to read the “beast” series of Gantt books.
In addition to reading books, I also read about five newspapers a day.
I say all the time that we can learn from anybody. We can learn from the mouths of babes or from the slurred speeches from winos.
The bottom line is, never stop learning, never stop reading and never stop enjoying The Gantt Report.
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.