In this first comprehensive collection of autobiographical and literary essays, Margaret Walker--described by Booklist as "one of the intellectual beacons of her generation"--recounts the search for family and social history from which she wrote her carefully researched novel of the Civil War. The autobiographical essays reflect on her work and her life as an artist, an African American, and a woman, while the literary essays examine the writings of such giants as Richard Wright, W. E. B. DuBois, Phillis Wheatley, and others.