Wright furnishes some statistics, though it is not the point of his book; he also makes side comments about the salient aspects of the ghetto problem--attitudes of teachers and guidance counsellors, public housing, welfare, the gamut.

Wright makes a call to action as well. But it is addressed, if to anyone outside the ghetto, to foundations rather than to the Federal government. In the political realm, he does call for a national lobby, for better communications, for organization. Yet he never loses sight of the necessity for exploring both sides of any question. His statements are couched in terms comprehensible to blacks and whites alike.

The signs of unrest in our cities are unquestionably but the early warning signals of a growing division between the two Americas. A man taught to hate himself can do no less than grow in his hatred of others... on the other hand, it is reasonable to resent one's having to feed forever another man or other men who do not work, whose outrage gives rise to riots and whose resultant irresponsibility ruffles the wanted quiet and peaceableness of our communities throughout the land. Two nations, two Americas, are being built; and they are set on a deadly collision course.

Wright calls for "rehabilitation and not relief." He rejects the noblesse oblige of an aristocracy-whether of race or of class--that operates within a system of "semi-immutable power relationships." He calls instead for action to bring human life to its full development, regardless of changes in power relationships which this will involve. "Human relationships," says Wright, "are not to be conceived in static terms."

It raises the depressing question: How may a system which is concerned with keeping power relations rigid be transmuted to one which sets higher value on human development without power itself being utilized in the change; will not such a change involve conflict? Perhaps pain and suffering?

Wright's answer is a simple "yes." His book cannot outline a program which has not yet been conceived. But of all speeches and writings in this area, it comes closet to setting the tone and parameters within which such a program might be created. The most staid of the Black Power advocates. Floyd McKissick, and Wright are in some sense transitional men. They articulate grievances and point the way for change. They seek to mobilize the resources of the entire Negro community, impossible as it may seem, in a first plunge into group politics and economic activity--a plunge for which neither immediate success nor immediate failure is indicated.