WHO NEEDS THE Negro? What does the Negro want? I grew up hearing these types of questions. I don’t recall my parents losing sleep over them; they were busy placing food on the table so that I could eat.
Black intellectuals have always wrestled with the riddle of how to survive in the United States. Think of W. E. B. Black. Then there was Malcolm X who discarded his slave name, and Carter G. Woodson who centered Black history. We can spend entire lifetimes wondering, how do we handle not just segregation and prejudice but heartbreak and the blues? How do we understand what often renders us invisible to others?
