"In recent years, growing income inequality and economic stress have made it easier to exploit divisions in American society. But those divisions only end up undermining the political effectiveness of ordinary citizens. In this important book, William Julius Wilson shrewdly argues for organizing a grass-roots multiracial coalition around policies that would make the economy work for ordinary Americans. The rest is up to us."--Senator Paul Wellstone"For two decades, William Julius Wilson has exemplified a combination of academic creativity, personal integrity, and public commitment that is embarrassingly rare among scholars. His long line of crucially important scholarship now culminates in The Bridge over the Racial Divide."--Jennifer Hochschild, author of Facing Up to the American DreamWilliam Julius Wilson is practical, provocative and optimistic. In his much needed book, he offers concrete steps towards solving the crippling problem of race and inequality in America that too many others dismiss as intractable.--Marion Wright Edelman, President, The Children's Defense FundThis book is a superb contribution to the national debate about equality, class, race, and politics. Defying easy categories, as he always does, William Julius Wilson manages to square the circle by blending a strategy of racial uplift with one of practical and believable politics.--Robert Kuttner, coeditor, The American ProspectCombining the detachment of a great scholar with the passion of a deeply concerned citizen, William Julius Wilson calls for a new multiracial coalition of all those who have been losing ground in America. This is an important and timely book.--Robert B. Reich, University Professor and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy, Brandeis UniversityThrough several seminal works, William Julius Wilson boldly redefined the discourse of race in American society. By unveiling the inextricable interplay between ethnicity and class, Wilson established a paradigm for the study of racial relations at the end of the century as original as that of W. E. B. Du Bois at the beginning. In The Bridge over the Racial Divide, Wilson once again confirms his status as an original thinker, articulating the necessity of a multiracial coalition politics for a twenty-first century America riven by social inequality and racial discrimination. A must read for all of us who care about justice and democracy in a multicultural America.--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University Read Less