Here’s an eminently readable reference of African-American contributions to the arts, faithfully adapted from the original one-volume encyclopedia Africana. Essays on such influential black figures as the writer and activist Amiri Baraka; singers Billie Holiday, Paul Robeson, and Lena Horne; painter Romare Bearden; filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, and poet Maya Angelou, as well as on black cultural events throughout modern history, create a rich resource of African-American arts and letters.