ABSTRACT
Four major articles written in 1995 were instrumental in sparking renewed debate about the roles, responsibilities, representation, and authenticity of the new black public intellectuals. All three articles largely focused on issues of representation and authenticity. The Black community is in a state of emergency; Black intellectuals have acquired unprecedented power and prestige. This chapter focuses on the debate over the responsibilities and expectations of black intellectuals in the post–civil rights era and the 1990s specifically, tracing the antecedents of the debate from the turn of the twentieth century is a necessary endeavor. The Civil Rights Movement brought about a number of political and legal rights for black Americans. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the roles and responsibilities of black intellectuals have been variously defined as race leaders, representatives of black America, scholarly pioneers, corrective scholars, and articulators of the social problems that befall black communities.
