With passion and perception, Albert Murray speaks in his five major works to political and social scientists as well as to the black-power advocates and the black-aesthetics theoreticians who started their scrutiny and criticism of American and Afro-American politics and culture during the late 1960s. Taking Afro-American culture as his subject, Murray condemns those whose perception of the degrading damages of slavery upon Afro-Americans prevents them from appreciating the heroic style of life which Afro-Americans have developed. Recognized by his early critics as "not primarily a political person," a "racial moderate," he was also praised for being "original," "iconoclastic," "unique." If initially he was regarded as "speaking for himself," or as being "up to something quite different," the abiding concern of his writing is the triumph of Afro-American people, who, despite and, indeed, in Murray's view, because of centuries of difficulties, created a courageous, complex, life-sustaining, and life-enhancing...