Contributors to high culture such as Amiri Baraka and Jessye Norman are covered along with pop-culture icons like Bill Cosby and Chubby Checker. Lead editor Salzman is professor of American culture at Columbia University. The other general editors are David Lionel Smith, from Williams College, and Cornel West, a noted author from Harvard. Arnold Rampersad, the biographer of Langston Hughes, authored the 12-page entry Literature . The biography of Marcus Garvey was written by Robert Hill, who is editing Garvey's papers.
Bibliographies appear at the ends of even the briefest entries.
A list of biographical entries by profession is followed by an extensive index that also notes illustrations. This work does not gloss over problems in the African American community, as shown by such entries as Drugs , Crime , and Urban Riots and Rebellion . But such entries as Indian Wars , Chess , Patents and Inventions , Psychology and Psychiatry , and Science Fiction show how widespread black participation is in American society, not just in the stereotypical areas of sports and music. This readable encyclopedia is an essential purchase for academic and medium-size and large public libraries. While the price may make it a stretch for high-school and small public libraries, if they buy any reference work on African Americans this year, this should be it.