Race and Reconciliation in America

Book excerpt: Race and racism have played a divisive and defining role throughout much of America's history. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and Ku Klux Klan terrorism have inflicted deep psychic wounds, social disparities, and economic disadvantages that have diminished the promise of equal rights and opportunities for all. While much progress in race relations has been made in recent years_including the election of Barack Obama as President of the United State_it's clear that our journey to a post-racial era is far from complete. In virtually every measurable category, whether income levels, job opportunities, access to health care, life expectancy, high school diplomas, incarceration rates, do not fare well compared to their white counterparts. The dialogue entitled Race and Reconciliation in America was convened to provide a forum for a long overdue, open, honest, and constructive discussion among people of good will about the need for the American people to truly grasp the depth of past misdeeds, why the legacies of past oppression persist, and how we can achieve a more fair and just society embodied in the American Dream.