Prologue: free at last? A personal perspective on race and identity in America -- Race and responsibility in the post-civil rights era : Black dignity and the common good -- The moral quandary of the black community -- The new American dilemma -- Two paths to black progress -- The end of an illusion: black-Jewish relations in the nineties -- Economic discrimination: getting to the core of the problem -- Senate testimony on the civil rights act of 1990 -- Can we talk? : Self-censorship in public discourse: a theory of political correctness and related phenomena -- Leadership failure and the loyalty trap -- Second thoughts and first principles -- Professors and the poor: discussion at a poverty conference -- A critical look at the field (selected review) : Preaching to the converted - race matters by Cornel West --

Liberal racism - two nations by Andrew Hacker

Dilemmas of a black intellectual - reflections of an affirmative action baby by Stephen L. Carter

Demanding more of blacks than whites - the content of our character by Shelby Steele

The family, the nation, and Senator Moynihan - family and nation by Daniel P. Moynihan

A crisis grows in Brooklyn - Canarsie by Jonathan Rieder

Other reviews, 1992-1994 : Doing well by doing good - the death of an American Jewish community by Hillel Levine and Lawrence Harmon ; Miracles are still happening - upon this rock: the miracles of the black church by Samuel G. Freedman ; Spiritual politics - the culture of disbelief by Stephen L. Carter ; Permanently alienated - faces at the bottom of the well: the permanence of racism by Derrick Bell ; The epic career of W. E. B. Du Bois - W. E. B. Du Bois: writings edited by Nathan I. Huggins ; Black crime: answering conservatives - "America's black crime gap - and how to close it" by John DiIulio ; It's a spiritual thing, you wouldn't understand - the bell curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray

Epilogue: new life: a professor and veritas.