Crisis in Black and White

If you want to learn about race relations and you do not have a lot of time, READ THIS BOOK! It is one of the best short books on race relations. Unfortunately, no book as sweeping in scope, scholarly, concise, readable and fair as this one has been published in the last 30 years. It traces race relations from slavery to emancipation to Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the migration of African-Americans to the Northern cities. The author predicts an explosion of racial violence, which in fact did happen after this book was written, in the 1960s. He offers a solution: community organizing in the style of the labor organizer Saul Alinsky, plus pre-kindergarten education for black children. (Alinsky wrote the book "Rules for Radicals.") Malcolm X, Ralph Abernathy (Martin Luther King Jr.'s close associate), and Jerome Bruner (famous Harvard psychologist) all had high praise for the book. It is 30 years old, but 80% of the information is still relevant, and 95% is relevant if you are interested in the history of race relations.