Collaborating on The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, editors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay have compiled what may be the definitive collection of its kind. Organized chronologically, the massive work gathers writings from six periods of black history: slavery and freedom; Reconstruction; the Harlem Renaissance; Realism, Naturalism and Modernism; the Black Arts Movement and the period since the 1970s. The work begins with the vernacular tradition of spirituals, gospel and the blues; continues through work songs, jazz and rap; ranges through sermons and folktales; and embraces letters and journals, poetry, short fiction, novels, autobiography and drama.