The fundamental issues confronting public higher education in its efforts to reach America's minorities are addressed. Higher education's historical progress in providing a path to equality is surveyed, and certain recent trends showing a clear reversal of that progress are examined. Three chapters offer strategies for stopping the trend and reawakening the national commitment to providing higher education as a path to equality for all. "Public Higher Education and Black Americans: Today's Crisis, Tomorrow's Disaster?" (Clifford R. Wharton, Jr.) advocates a second front in the battle for educational equity, with minority communities being the foundation for minority progress. In "Revising the Recent Decline in Minority Participation in Higher Education" John Maguire expands on this theme to argue that the society must recognize its vital stake in minority progress before any progress can be made. This new perspective must be permanent. Finally in "Standing at the Crossroads: Traditionally Black Colleges Today," Albert N. Whiting examines the historical and contemporary vitality of traditionally black institutions and explores their necessity and value in a society committed to integration. (SM)