"If Van Gogh was our 19th-century artist-saint, James Baldwin is our 20th-century one."
–Michael Ondaatje
"The best essayist in this country–a man whose power has always been in his reasoned, biting sarcasm; his insistence on removing layer by layer the hardened skin with which Americans shield themselves from their country."
–The New York Times Book Review "It will be hard for the reader to see these films in quite the same way again."
–The Christian Science Monitor "He has taken the old subject of race and made it even more personal probing perhaps more deeply than ever before into American racial practices."
–The Nation "A provocative discussion."
–Saturday Review