Plessy v. Ferguson, which said that as a matter of official policy, when it came to matters of race, the United States could move on “separate but equal” tracks, even though it was obvious to all that the “separate” facilities, schools, and the like, created for Black people were not “equal.” There could be first-class citizenship and second-class citizenship in the American republic. The “twoness,” then, was externally imposed and, as always in history, a different path could have been taken. Almost from the very beginning of their time in North America,
