This work espouses that though African Americans have come a long way, issues such as social, economic, health, educational, judicial, political, cultural, and civil rights are of such a critical nature that President Barack Obama must meet them head on and in a manner different from that of mainstream America.

With an African American in the White House, there is no better time for assessing the progress the United States has made in protecting the rights of all its citizens. The Cultural Rights Movement: Fulfilling the Promise of Civil Rights for African Americans offers such an assessment, with an in-depth look at the Obama administration's proposed initiatives as they relate to the African American community and a survey of civil rights issues that need to be reexamined in light of Obama's election.

The Cultural Rights Movement is a well-researched, powerfully written analysis of why a substantial number of blacks have yet to get their piece of the American dream. Coverage includes discriminatory lending practices; unfair Congressional redistricting; disparities in physician care and health outcomes; the low number of black students, faculty members and coaches in mainstream universities; the phenomenal high rate of blacks being arrested, convicted and incarcerated; the continual growth of black underemployment and poverty; and the near-total neglect of the reparations issue.

Eric J. Bailey, PhD, is professor of anthropology and public health at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC.