Why have blacks been, in effect, responsible for much of the material success of America? Why did whites consider dispossession of blacks as essential to the rise of industrial wealth? Why has the continued relegation of blacks to outcast status united the rest of the nation? Why did the black agitation of the sixties yield to the despair of the seventies and the indifference of the eighties and nineties?

Face-to-Face pursues the answers to these and many other important questions as it examines the white and black trends in American history and contemporary culture. It traces the devastating economic, political and social effects of segregation, all too evident in our city ghettos. It lays bare the myths behind the black stereotypes, such as the Black Beast, the Contented Slave and the Mulatto. Most of these stereotypes have sexual implications.

Even white writers and intellectuals as acclaimed as William Faulkner, John Crowe Ransom, Norman Mailer and William Styron repeat and perpetuate them. Through her personal association with Malcolm X and other black rebels of the sixties, and her work for the old Freedom Now Party and The Liberator magazine, the author is able to give unusual insight into the blacks' uphill struggle to achieve their own cultural autonomy and overcome the bias of white supremacy.