70 poems by one of the best-known Negro poets reflect the many different aspects of the American racial revolution.

Words on fire: Corner meeting -- Harlem -- Prime -- Crowns and garlands -- Elderly leaders -- The backlash blues -- Lenox Avenue bar -- Motto -- Junior addict -- Dream deferred -- Death in Yorkville -- Who but the Lord? -- Third degree -- Black Panther -- Final call. -- American heartbreak: Ghosts of 1619 -- October 16: the raid -- Long view: Negro -- Frederick Douglass: 1817-1895 -- Still here -- Words like freedom. -- The Bible Belt: Christ in Alabama -- Militant -- Office building: evening -- Florida Road workers -- Special bulletin -- Mississippi -- Ku Klux -- Justice -- Birmingham Sunday -- Bombings in Dixie -- Children's rhymes -- Down where I am. -- The face of war: Mother in wartime -- Without benefit of declaration -- Official notice -- Peace -- Last prince of the East -- The dove -- War. -- African question mark: Oppression -- Angola question mark -- Lumumba's grave -- Color -- Question and answer -- History. -- Dinner guest: me: Northern liberal -- Sweet words on race -- Un-American investigators -- Slave -- Undertow -- Little song on housing -- Cultural exchange -- Frosting -- Impasse. -- Daybreak in Alabama: Freedom -- Go slow -- Merry-go-round -- Dream dust -- Stokely Malcolm me -- Slum dreams -- Georgia dusk -- Where? When? Which? -- Vari-colored song -- Jim Crow car -- Warning -- Daybreak in Alabama.