The activist and comedian examines key events in black history, from the beginnings of the slave trade in Africa and the Middle Passage to the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Lives Matter movement.

"Hubert Humphrey, a fallen hero and a dying man, rose on rickety legs to approach the podium of the Philadelphia Convention Hall, his pulpit for the commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania. He clutched a sheaf of paper with his speech for the occasion, typed and double-spaced by an assistant from his extemporaneous dictation, and then marked up in pencil by Humphrey himself. A note on the first page, circled to draw particular attention,...

The Beatitudes form the backdrop for Weatherford's free-verse poem that traces the African American journey from slavery to civil rights.

"Frost explores how the United States' concept of citizenship and the rights of citizens has evolved, and especially how it has been challenged"--