Harris' analysis offers compelling insight into the profound psychological impact of visual stereotypes on the African American community.

Michael D. Harris is an associate professor of African and African American art history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jubilee: The Emergence of African American Culture
By Howard Dodson
National Geographic Books, February 2003, 224 pp., $35.00,
ISBN 0-7922-6982-9 

The development and growth of a truly unique African American culture out of the bonds of slavery is celebrated in a new release from National Geographic Books, in association with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the New York Public Library system.

More than 200 illustrations, photographs and documents chronicle the history of Africans in the Americas, spanning the nearly 400 years between their arrival in chains and their emancipation. The book presents a new perspective on slavery, focusing on the cultural, social, political and economic activities that Africans took part in the midst of slavery to redefine themselves and reshape their destinies.

The book brings together some of the most important voices in African American culture: Henry Louis Gates Jr., Gail Buckley, John Hope Franklin, Amiri Baraka, Annette Gorden-Reed and Gayraud Wilmore contribute essays on topics such as African American military services, the religion of the slave, emancipation, and the phenomenon of soul in African American music. Renowned jazz artist and composer Wynton Marsalis wrote the foreword to the book.

Howard Dodson is director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library.