Profiles sixteen high-achieving African Americans, including magician Richard Potter, concert singer Sissieretta Jones, and architect Paul R. Williams.

"Behind every great man (or woman), there's a compulsion" --Provided by publisher.

"'The passing on of information and history from one person to another to another has always served us well. Ours is an oral tradition.' So begins Take a Lesson, a groundbreaking book of oral history. Twenty years later, every word in this book holds up as relevant, resonant and, in some ways, prophetic. Here we are, in a profoundly different world that, in its relationship with Black people, has barely changed at all. Powerful first-person accounts...