Introduction

When 20 Africans landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, no one would have suspected they were the vanguard of what would evolve into a race-based society. ¹ It would take 246 years for the progeny of these reluctant immigrants to be accorded formal US citizenship. Even with these formal papers, true freedom was not to be had in a race-based society. Black mobility was constrained by a complicated set of laws, social attitudes and relationships. After the social conditions that propped up the race-based society began to dissipate, Americans of African descent began to move slowly toward sociologist Robert E. Park's last stage of his sequence for out-group inclusion, called assimilation. ² This book outlines America's transition from a race-based society to a post-racial one. A race-based society is defined as a society in which the government codifies, supports and condones racial discrimination among citizens with different skin color and phenotypes. In this society there was a systematic policy to inhibit educational, economic and social opportunities for people of African descent. People so identified were not given the full protection of the laws and judicial process. Elected political leaders blatantly and safely ignored black grievances and mistreatment. The policy of using people of African descent as slaves began when America was a group of colonies, and the practice was official sanctioned as a policy of the newly independent United States of America. The nation's policy of differential treatment for people of African descent continued until the mid-20th century.