If his presidency is to represent the full power of the idea that black Americans are just like everyone else - fully human and fully capable of intellect, courage and patriotism - then Barack Obama has to be subject to the same rough and tumble of political criticism experienced by his predecessors.
It is time to celebrate the New Black Americans - those who have sealed the Deal, who aren't beholden to liberal indulgence any more than they are to the disdain of the hard Right. It is time to praise blacks who are merely undeniable in their individuality and exemplary in their levels of achievement.
Irish Americans are no more Irish than Black Americans are Africans.
I fully recognize and appreciate the many substantial contributions of black Americans and other minorities to the creation and preservation and development of our great nation.
Progress for black Americans depends on good schools because education is the last great equalizer.
The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed.
For black Americans, we know that gun control... sprouts from racist soil - be it after the or during the infamous Dred Scott case where black man's humanity was not recognized.
How many of the original songs survive intact from the slave cabins? Probably not many in their original form. Time has transformed them like light in a prism. What we hope to present is a version of those spirituals, and they speak not just to black Americans, but to people worldwide.
Particularly black Americans, many of them, from quotes that I have seen and conversations I've had, are sort of insulted that the civil rights movement is being hijacked - the rhetoric of the civil rights movement is being hijacked for something like same sex marriage. Black Americans tend to have a higher degree of religiosity.
Big and oppressive government has long been the enemy of freedom, something black Americans know all too well.