The true story of racial inequality—and resistance to it—is the prologue to our present. You can see it in where we live, where we go to school, where we work, in our laws, and in our leadership. Unequal presents a gripping account of the struggles that shaped America and the insidiousness of racism, and demonstrates how inequality persists. As readers meet some of the many African American people who dared to fight for a more equal future, they will also discover a framework for addressing racial injustice in their own lives.

Mary Church Terrell fights back against segregation -- Ida B. Wells exposes America's lynching epidemic -- Buck Franklin bears witness to the destruction of Black Wall Street -- Ned Cobb confronts racial inequality on the job -- Dr. Ossian Sweet breaks through the color line to find a home in Detroit -- Pauli Murray discovers the key to ending segregation in schools -- Daisy Myers integrates the white suburbs -- Malcolm X launches a struggle against police brutality -- Fannie Lou Hamer takes back the right to vote -- James Meredith integrates the University of Mississippi -- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Memphis's sanitation workers protest for equal pay -- John Carlos and Tommie Smith raise a fist for Black pride -- Ruth Batson uncovers segregation in Boston -- Michelle Alexander confronts the New Jim Crow -- Barack Obama, Catherine Flowers, and Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha expose America's crisis of environmental racism -- Yusef Salaam battles racial profiling -- Stacey Abrams leads the fight against voter suppression -- Dr. Susan Moore calls out America's unequal health care -- The Black Lives Matter Movement opens the final battle for racial equality -- Nikole Hannah-Jones taps into the power of history.