ABSTRACT
The history of American racism is baleful. Slavery was unashamedly embraced for more than two centuries, and after it was officially abolished by the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865, “Jim Crow” legislation and blatant cruelty continued to subjugate and humiliate African Americans well into the twentieth century. Huge, unacceptable differences between white and black lives persist. High unemployment in Chicago’s black neighborhoods, aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic and its concomitant deep depression, precipitated mindless outbreaks of violence in 2020. Racial inequity undermines our social fabric. It is a fundamental threat to realization of the full promise of our society and democracy. Centuries of experience testify that, despite civil rights laws and other progressive actions, racial inequity prevails.
