On May 17, legendary black comedian Bill Cosby blasted the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Howard University at the gala celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision, upsetting the applecart of black activism to no mean degree when he criticized blacks for abdicating various personal and social responsibilities. Cosby's very public censure of blacks for rebuffing the many opportunities for education and social advancement open to them earned him wide excoriation in the black and (to a slightly lesser degree) mainstream press. He was accused of being too harsh,...