How to Improve Black America: Insights from Leading African American Voices | Community Development & Social Change

One of America's most celebrated and respected commentators, BET talk-show host Tavis Smiley brings together the voices of countless widely admired African Americans in a rich, provocative, and solutions-oriented exploration of the challenges facing Black America.How to Make Black America Better opens with Tavis Smiley's twelve "challenges" to the African American community. Among the issues that Smiley addresses are getting Black Americans to "think Black first," insisting that Black Americans-including those in entertainment and the media-consider the consequences of their actions with regard to the Black community; and encouraging African Americans to put family first.At the heart of the book is a collection of original essays contributed by such celebrated figures as Iyanla Vanzant, Marian Wright Edelman, Susan Taylor, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Chuck D., Nikki Giovanni, and Shaquille O'Neal. Ranging from one to several pages in length, each of these essays addresses vital issues in the African American community, from affirmative action to Black-on-Black crime, political power to economic independence, race relations to family life, and much more.Finally, at the back of the book Smiley has included high-powered excerpts and highlights from the national symposium he organized in Los Angeles on the eve of the Democratic National Convention entitled "Advocacy in the Next Millennium: New Paradigms for Progress," featuring, among others, such luminaries as Magic Johnson, Johnnetta Cole, Cornel West, Maxine Waters, and Jesse Jackson, Sr.