America must remember its history.
As Americans began the business of reconstructing their Country after a bloody civil war, they also reconstructed the Constitution.
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, but still more work was needed to ensure equality of all people.
The 14th Amendment enhanced the civil rights of all citizens, and the 15th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race.
Together these three amendments, known as Reconstruction Amendments, declared a new birth of freedom and equality in the United States of America.
With the 15th Amendment, the Constitutional Reconstruction was complete.
That date was February 1869, but America forgot its history.
For the following 95 years, some state legislatures still passed black code laws, also known as Jim Crow laws that continued to segregate Americans based on immutable traits.
Then an incident which lit the fuse of awareness occurred.
On an April morning in 1955, a courageous American named Rosa Parks was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man.
That evening, the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, a man named Martin Luther King Jr., began to speak out against this segregation.
The Montgomery bus boycott occurred and continued until December 1956. It was the first large-scale demonstration against segregation since February of 1869.
Finally, in July of 1964, the Civil Rights Act passed prohibiting discrimination based on color of skin, race, gender, or the nation of origin of a citizen. Now America saw real change happen in the following decades.
Race in America became less of an issue. People grew closer together. There was a feeling of brotherhood and friendship and race issues were replaced with respect. Race did not seem to be a big issue. Yet America was still not perfect as we continued to have issues that needed improvement.
But then America began to forget its history once again.
We began to see the rise of race and immutable traits as being factors in decision-making.
Today, America is feeling the angst and friction again in the struggle we see in an imperfect society.
America needs to reflect on our history and where we have come from, and remember the work and sacrifice Americans of the past have made to create a nation in which every one of us can truly live out our full potential as individuals and as a united people. We cannot fix discrimination with another form of regressive discrimination. We must look at each other and not just see immutable traits but see each other in admiration of the unique qualities of character, capability and unlimited potential of the individual.
We now must achieve the equality that Rosa Parks desired.
As we understand history, we can make better decisions.
We can understand the importance of respecting each other.
We can create real unity, solidarity and social cohesion.
EID is not the way forward to create this cohesion.
We must believe in our American lessons learned. Now is the time for equality for all.
Thank you very much for your time.
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