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

"'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...

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

"'Standing on the stage, I felt exposed and like an intruder. In these professional settings, my personal experiences with hunger, poverty, and episodic homelessness, often go undetected. I had worked hard to learn the rules and disguise my beginning in life ... ' So begins C. Nicole Mason's powerful memoir, a story of reconciliation, constrained choices and life on the other side of the tracks. Born in the 1970s in Los Angeles, California, Mason...