What forces transformed Africans into African Americans? How did they sustain themselves during centuries of captivity and oppression? In what way did their presence shape their attitudes - and fortunes - of White America? How did Black people become a nation within a nation? And what are the prospects for that nation in the 1990s? These are among the questions that Lerone Bennett Jr addresses in this companion volume to his "Before the Mayflower". It tells its story from a developmental perspective. Its first section, "Foundations", encompasses Black slaves and White indentured servants, the Black founding fathers and the relationship between African-Americans and Indians. In the second section, "Directions", Bennett traces the growth of Black labour and Black capital and their convergence into a separate economy.