| On the Corner Subjects: African American intellectuals -- History -- 20th century; Clark Kenneth Bancroft 1914–2005 -- Political and social views; Baraka Amiri 1934– -- Political and social views; Bearden Romare 1911–1988 -- Political and social views; African American int; In July 1964, after a decade of intense media focus on civil rights protest in the Jim Crow South, a riot in Harlem abruptly shifted attention to the urban crisis embroiling America's northern cities. On the Corner revisits the volatile moment when African American intellectuals were thrust into the spotlight as indigenous interpreters of black urban life to white America, and examines how three figures--Kenneth B. Clark, Amiri Baraka, and Romare Bearden--wrestled with the opportunities and dilemmas their heightened public statures entailed. Daniel Matlin locates in the 1960s a new dynamic that has continued to shape African American intellectual practice to the present day, as black urban communities became the chief objects of black intellectuals' perceived social obligations. Matlin Daniel : Daniel Matlin is Lecturer in the History of the United States of America since 1865 at King's College London. |