Here are six historic essays on the state of race relations during the Reconstruction and early twentieth century, written from the African American point of view. These essays show us how far race relations have progressed, and sadly how far we have yet to go. Included are "Industrial Education for the Negro," by Booker T. Washington, "The Talented Tenth," by W.E. Burghardt DuBois, "The Disfranchisement of the Negro," by Charles W. Chesnutt, "The Negro and the Law," by Wilford H. Smith, "The Characteristics of the Negro People," by H.T. Kealing, and "Representative American Negroes" by Paul Laurence Dunbar.