America Behind the Color Line: Diaglogues with African Americans

In a stirring, authoritative companion volume to the television series of the same name, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has compiled a series of essays and interviews that cut to the heart of the African American experience. Through personal accounts, he and his contributors discuss the splitting of African American society in the post-Martin Luther King era into two camps: the privileged and the disenfranchised. Contributing to the discussion are such prominent figures as Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, Morgan Freeman, Quincy Jones, Bernie Mac, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Nia Long, Maya Angelou, Franklin Raines, Russell Simmons, and Lenora Fulani. Together, these celebrities forge a powerful synthesis of ideas and life experience that points to the perils and promise of the racial future.