Presents the history of hip-hop including, how it evolved from folktales, spirituals, and poetry, to the showmanship of James Brown, to the culture of graffiti art and breakdancing that formed around the art form.

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

"Hard as we work for nothing, there must be some way we can change things...there must be something else." ---The youngest of twenty children born to sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, Fannie Lou Hamer grew up to become a hero of the civil rights movement. She participated in marches, sit-ins, and voter education training...efforts that earned her severe beatings by the police, jail time, and bullets shot into her home. In 1964, as a member...

"On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million activists and demonstrators from every corner of the United States convened for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was there that they raised their voices in unison to call for racial and economic justice for all Black Americans, to call out inequities, and ultimately to advance the Civil Rights Movement. Every movement has its unsung heroes: individuals who work in the background without praise...

A multi-generational family history told in the voices of the author's ancestors, spanning enslavement alongside Frederick Douglass at Maryland's Wye House plantation, service in the U.S. Colored Troops, and the founding of all-Black Reconstruction-era communities.