To deny that the United States has made genuine progress toward equality is to insult the memory of the millions who suffered open and explicit restrictions on their freedom to go where they wish or marry whom they love. And yet it is impossible to understand the present intellectual moment without taking seriously the reasons why a cohort of Black scholars and intellectuals came to feel bitterly disappointed. For, measured against the exalted hopes of the civil rights era, America really did—and does—fall painfully short.
