In Search of Black America: Discovering the African-American Dream

If you watch the news, it is possible to misconstrue African Americans as an undereducated, hyperathletic, and jail-prone demographic group residing largely in urban areas. This is precisely the kind of cliché that journalist David J. Dent seeks to undermine in his thought-provoking In Search of Black America. In his travels across the U.S., Dent found that, contrary to popular opinion, African Americans are a complex group of people with a myriad of opinions, viewpoints, and beliefs. "While diversity and multiculturalism within the African American community are rich, there are still some common threads running throughout it," Dent writes. In 1993, he began his five-year mission to seek out these common threads and to meet the people behind the statistics. What emerges are the hopes, plans, triumphs, and failures of a people, as well as a close look at America in general. Dent reveals himself as an informed and enlightening travel companion. --Eugene Holley Jr.