Contents

• 1. Introduction: Some of Us Did Not Die
• 2. The Invisible People: An Unsolicited Report on Black Rage
• 3. A Far Stretch Well Worth the Effort
• 4. Hunting for Jews?
• 5. A Letter to Maria
• 6. Do You Do Well To Be Angry?
• 7. Update on Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Best of My Heart
• 8. Letter to My Friend
• 9. Break the Law!
• 10. A Couple of Words on Behalf of Sex (Itself)
• 11. Besting a Worst Case Scenario
• 12. Notes Toward a Model of Resistance
• 13. O. J. Simpson: Innocent of What?
• 14. Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan: One Love
• 15. Islam and the USA Today
• 16. I Am Seeking an Attitude
• 17. The Light of the Fire
• 18. Waking Up in the Middle of Some American Dreams
• 19. Requiem for the Champ
• 20. Can I Get a Witness?
• 21. A New Politics of Sexuality
• 22. For My American Family: A Belated Tribute to a Legacy of Gifted Intelligence and Guts
• 23. The Mountain and the Man Who Was Not God: An Essay on the Life and Ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• 24. Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan
• 25. The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America or Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley
• 26. Life After Lebanon
• 27. White Tuesday: November, 1984
• 28. Nicaragua: Why I Had to Go There
• 29. Report from the Bahamas
• 30. Problems of Language in a Democratic State
• 31. Many Rivers to Cross
• 32. For the Sake of People’s Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us
• 33. Civil Wars
• 34. Where Is the Love?
• 35. Old Stories: New Lives
• 36. Notes Toward a Black Balancing of Love and Hatred
• 37. American Violence and the Holy Loving Spirit
• 38. Letter to R. Buckminster Fuller
• 39. Letter to Michael
• 40. Foreword to Civil Wars