We as a nation must embrace the issue of race and acknowledge our history. The skeletons in the closet provide us with an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and shape the future.

The bedrock of American democracy legally represented a slave, a permenent occupation based solely on race, as three-fifths of a human. African Americans became essentially dehumanized. Is it any wonder that African Americans were looked upon as sub-human, and treated little better than oxen. On this bedrock the American society and culture were built.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery, guaranteed newly freed slaves 40 acres and a mule. This was a promise—a reparation made but never kept. The act recognized that to truly free a people, they must be given the means to maintain their freedom.

Although the methods were changed, the results were the same. Instead of becoming landowners, they became sharecroppers. Instead of slowly accumalting wealth, they became more and more indebted. Race and class became entwined. Legal freedoms provided by 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments became merely empty words in letter and in spirit.

At this same time—between 1870 and 1910—America saw a massive influx of European immigrants. For them, America represented the land of freedom, hope, and opportunity. These immigrants did back-breaking work and often gave up their name, language, and culture while climbing up the social ladder. Do I deny their struggle, do I deny their sacrifice? No.

But let us not delude ourselves. The reason why America was the land of freedom, hope, and opportunity—the reason why this mass of immigrants secured a place in the middle class by 1930—was that this freedom, hope, and opportunity was denied to all others. Native Americans were concentrated into geographically isolated camps called "reservations." A congressional act banned Asian immigration. African Americans were locked into sharecropping and systematically denied employment in same way they were denied their new gained rights.

In his "I have a dream speech," Martin Luther King Jr. said, "One hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free … In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check.

"When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’

"But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."

The question is, in the last 30 years, have we rehabilitated African Americans to the point that they can today fully cash that check? Some can, but most cannot. The great legislation of this era renewed voting rights, granted affirmative action, and created a social safety net. But yet again we ignored the means of guaranteeing this re-established freedom for the masses. Affirmative action only helps those few who have managed to run the gauntlet, but does not help those who tripped along the way. If we believe that ability and talents are found irregardless of race, how do we account for the number of African Americans in prison, jobless, and poor? Logic would say that in an equitable society we would see nearly equitable numbers from race to race. Others may say this overwhelming plight, and the lack of this plight found among whites, is directly related to "work ethic." But we must also consider if these "coincidences" are related to a culture and society built on a bedrock of marginalizing African Americans.

In a technological society, education, not 40 acres and a mule, is the means which guarantees freedom. More diversity is found in our cities, less found in our suburbs. But our school funding is directly determined by location, and thus we get suburban haves and city-dwelling have-nots. Is this justice? Location should not determine educational quality. The only difference between public and private education should be the prestige of the school. This nation has demonstrated the capability and has shown the capacity to fight injustice when confronted with its existence. We, the people, should be brave enough to stop making it too easy for some to fail, and conversely making it too easy for others to succeed.