"This powerful book tells of Ivory Perry's choice of a life of protest not in splendid isolation, but in intimate conversation with our world Perry knows and can tell us what it is to be poor and black in America. His story assigns our task." —William S. McFeely, University of Georgia "Those who would understand the changed realities of racial politics in St. Louis and ponder what might lie ahead should not ignore this thoroughly researched, well-written, persuasive book." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch "A very rich history of a rank and file leader of the black movement.... Hopefully it will be a prototype for books that emphasize the fact that social movements put up their own leaders whose qualities of leadership are precisely the same as the values and aspirations of the members of the movement." —George Rawick, University of Missouri at St. Louis