The Chains of Black America: The Hammer of the Police, The Anvil of the Schools is a description of how two great institutions of American government-the education and criminal justice systems-often hinder, rather than enable, the achievement of equal opportunities for the descendants of enslaved Africans. The book is about the caste status of African Americans, rather than about "people of color," or impoverished Americans, because of the specific history of African Americans and the way in which their oppression affects others. It is perhaps not too much to say that until descent from...