We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Racial Divide

WE ARE NOT YET EQUAL looks back at five pivotal moments in American history -- Reconstruction, the Great Migration, Brown vs. Board of Education, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and the election of Barack Obama -- when black Americans saw a chance to gain full equality but had that dream shattered by "white rage." Although the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution passed after the Civil War promised freedom from slavery, full citizenship, and the right to vote (black men only), the era of Reconstruction would see President Andrew Johnson and white Southern lawmakers and judges do everything in their power to deny black Americans those rights. During the Great Migration, 1915-1940, some 1.5 million blacks moved to the North seeking both equality and economic opportunity. The reaction in the South? When violence, threats, and laws couldn't stop the exodus, local officials literally stopped trains from running and tore up the tickets of black travelers. In the North, new arrivals often found themselves forced into segregated neighborhoods and schools by white communities unwilling to welcome them. In 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court case that ruled racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, gave rise to more violence as Southern school districts and lawmakers refused to abide by the court's ruling. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were hailed as a turning point for America, but led to state laws that disenfranchised millions of black voters. The book ends with the election of Barack Obama, the subsequent rise of campaigns against so-called voter fraud laws requiring IDs to vote, the shootings of young black men, and the 2013 Supreme Court decision that Anderson says "gutted" the Voting Rights Act. A brief epilogue notes the election of Donald Trump and the author's challenge to "rethink" what America might have become if all its citizens had equal access to education, housing, and the right to vote.