As to the indigenous persons who once lived freely in this vast expanse now called America, they were overrun, slaughtered, and had their land stolen from them by European settlers. Thank God in the 1980s our government was forced to pay out millions of dollars to their descendants. It also points the way towards what should be as to African Americans as well. As I stated previously, I don't believe that our country's injustice to persons of African ancestry ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, and that all is now well with their descendants. Long after the abolition of slavery, African American persons are still seen and dealt with in a way that is very far from what is deserved.
Slavery is dead, but the crime of institutionalized racism still exists.
The 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, did little to eradicate racism or the exploitation of African Americans. The Civil Rights Movement a century later gave us access to public accommodations and the right to vote, but did not overturn the pernicious pattern of poverty, unemployment, and inferior treatment which still stratifies our society. We're asking that we be paid for what we already rendered. For hundreds of years people worked as 'slaves' and were not paid. Their money was taken by others and invested to produce the wealth that has doubled and doubled again, increasing this enormous economic gap between blacks and whites.