New York: W. W. Norton & Company, (1999). A wide-ranging general history of African Americans in the land West of the Mississippi, "beginning with Esteban, a black slave who accompanied a party of Spanish explorers in Texas and the Southwest in the 1500s, [and including] the experiences of black explorers, black mountain men, black cowboys, buffalo soldiers, and black women who joined clubs and "progressive associations" and helped found all-black towns.. . Includes discussions of groups of African American wholly absorbed into Native American culture to illustrating how the largely forgotten role of blacks in the West helped contribute to everything from the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation ruling to the rise of the Black Panther Party" Illustrated with photographs, maps, extensive notes, bibliography and index. 415 pp. ISBN: 0-393318893.