The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Although black and white Americans live, work, and learn together now, there is still injustice in America.
The challenges African-Americans are facing today are rooted in the system of slavery.
I'll also say, yes, I think the change in black consciuosness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life.
There had always been black people in and out of our house, and from the outset I had been taught that for them life was defined by struggle and filled with injustice.
Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet. The shame doesn't even belong to us, but we still experience it because we're a part of the African race. If it happened to one, it happened to all. We carry that burden.
Segregation was a burden for many blacks, because the end of the civil war and the amendments added to the constitution elevated expectations beyond reality in some respects.
The perpetuation of slavery, the exile and extermination of American Indians, and the passage of Jim Crow laws weren't carried out at the bidding of a few malefactors of great wealth.
In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
From the first slave ship arriving in harbor, America stole and judged blacks. Black life that didn't fit into white logic was commercially exploited or lynched.
It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.