African Americans in the Performing Arts

These biographical dictionaries highlight the lives and accomplishments of notable individuals, past and present. Each volume contains 125 to 200 alphabetical entries, all of which provide some biographical details and concentrate on events related to achievements in that field. Athletes includes sports from automobile racing to wrestling. An appended list subdivides major sports, so Ernie Banks and Derek Jeter are grouped under Baseball Infielder and Gale Sayers and Marshall Faulk under Football Running Back. Unheralded women such as Earline Brown (shot putter) and Flo Hyman (volleyball) accompany more common names such as Althea Gibson. Performing Arts includes actors, dancers, choreographers, composers, and musicians and singers from ragtime to rap. Many entries, including those on Angela Bassett, Fats Waller, and Leontyne Price, provide cross-references to individuals who influenced the performers. Social Leaders contains abolitionists, separatists, civil rights activists, educators, newspaper publishers, and others whose efforts focused on the issues of their day. Entries on W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks accompany those on scores of lesser-known men and women. Nearly all entries have a Web-site reference. Science, Math, and Invention includes trailblazers who broke color barriers in their field, such as Frederick Drew Gregory, Deputy Administrator of NASA; and Sarah Breedlove Walker, the first self-made woman millionaire in the U.S. Average-quality, black-and-white portraits are scattered throughout. Overall, these are fine reference sources.-Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY