From a man who fought for everything still necessary today - Frederick Douglass
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
When he spoke these words, he saw America in the midst of the enslavement of Black people. He saw America as a place that could be better than slavery, move beyond the inherent hatred and ugliness that made slavery thrive. He envisioned a country where, if people of color were willing to fight hard enough, they could be freed from the chains of slavery and find prosperity. He believed this was possible if only the oppressive weight of slavery was lifted from their backs. Fast forward a century later, zoom past the Civil Rights Movement, through the assassination of all the black leaders who sought change, through the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, right to the 2008 election of a Black man to run the entire free world, to February 25, 2012 when an unarmed 17 year old black boy is shot to death in Florida by a 28 year old white man who decided he looked suspicious enough and black enough to be murdered in the street, to today where that white man has not been arrested for this killing. This is not the America Frederick Douglass envisioned. This is much more in line with the America he lived in. Progression this is not. Tragedy this truly is. Post Racial society does not exist. We have NOT arrived. That is my thought everyday, but today specifically...RIP to Trayvon Martin, Danroy Henry, Sean Bell, James Byrd and every other black man who died for simply being a black man...
~Maliek~
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