"In this insightful and well-balanced biography, Raymond Gavins has enlarged our understanding of what talented, proud, and race-conscious blacks encountered when they assumed leadership positions within a caste society." — Morton Sosna , American Historical Review
"Professor Gavin's study, based on extensive manuscript research, makes a valuable contribution to Afro-American history." — William F. Holmes , North Carolina Historical Review
"Raymond Gavins . . . incorporates biography and intellectual and social history in this excellent study of black leadership in Virginia." — Pete Daniel , Journal of Southern History
"A social history of profound consequences informing us of those noble warriors who anticipated the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Professor Gavins has written a work of major social and historical significance." — James E. Blackwell, University of Massachusetts at Boston
"Gavins is the quintessential intellectual historian. . . . [His] biography has a currency rarely found in scholarly studies." — John Blassingame, Yale University