One of the country's premier scholars on race and ethnicity, Randall Kennedy's instant bestseller Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word sparked a firestorm of national debate across the pages of the New York Times, Newsweek, and TIME. Renowned for his well-reasoned approach in tackling sensitive racial issues, he has been called "admirable, courageous, and meticulously fair and honest" (New York Times Book Review). Following positions at the United States Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, he joined the faculty at Harvard Law School. In The Persistence of the Color Line, Kennedy takes on the complex relationship between the first black president and his African American constituency, and the challenges posed by the dream of a post-racial society.