Jerry G. Watts is Professor of American studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. He is editor most recently of The Black Intellectual in Crisis: A Retrospective (Routledge, 1999). Manning Marable is one of America's most influential and widely read scholars. He was Professor of Public Affairs, Political Science, History and African-American Studies at Columbia University and was formerly the founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America (Pluto Press, 2000) and Beyond Boundaries (Paradigm, 2011). Charles Lemert is Andrus Professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University, Connecticut. He is the author of Durkeim's Ghosts (2006). Elizabeth Higginbotham is Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. She is editor most recently of Race and Ethnicity in Society: The Changing Landscape (Wadsworth, 2005).