A collection of poetry by twentieth-century African Americans expressing what it is like to be African in the United States. Includes capsule biographies of the poets.

Includes index.

Imamu Ameer Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Charles Cooper, Lloyd M. Corbin, Jr., Victor Hernandez Cruz, Kattie M. Cumbo, Djangatolum, Henry Dumas, Ray Durem, James A. Emanuel, Mari Evans, Julia Fields, Nikki Giovanni, Bobb Hamilton, William J. Harris, David Henderson, Calvin C. Hernton, Langston Hughes, Mae Jackson, Ted Joans, Alicia Loy Johnson, LeRoi Jones, Jordan Norman, Bob Kaufman, Etheridge Knight, Don L. Lee, William Alfred Mac Lean, Jr., Clarence Major, Lawrence McGaugh, Horace Mungin, Raymond Richard Patterson, Tom Poole, Quandra Prettyman, Dudley Randall, Conrad Kent Rivers, Sonia Sanchez, Larry Thompson, Margaret Walker.