This country should be proud of them, too, but, alas, not many people in this country even know of their existence. And the reason for this ignorance is a knowledge of the role these people played—and play—in American life would reveal more about America to Americans than Americans wish to know.
True and true and true. Seemingly true forever. How can the U.S. ever permit the story of black suffering at the hands of white people and of black survival and the black struggle to make America live up to its own dream self to be told in all its fullness? This story can never be embraced as THE story until the U.S. is no longer the U.S. it is now.
