"Race has been America's biggest problem ever since Europeans "discovered" the New World. Race festered during the colonial period. Race complicated independence. Race impeded the "more perfect union" sought by the Constitutional Convention. The Civil War nearly destroyed the United States. Even after slavery ended, race continued to be a very sore spot. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, our political vocabulary was enriched with terms like "Jim Crow laws," "segregation," and "separate but equal." Since the middle of the twentieth century there have been serious efforts to fix America's racial problems. School desegregation was ordered by the Supreme Court in 1954. A major Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964, and an equally important Voting Rights Act in 1965. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established and "affirmative action" to end treatment based on race was mandated in employment. Two generations of serious efforts to do something about race and racism have produced major changes in the United States. Most of the more gross manifestations of segregation have been swept away. However there is still a general and deeply-felt unhappiness about race relations Expressions of this unhappiness can be found in the editorials, op-ed columns, and letters-to-the- editor in every major newspaper...Will America's race problems ever be solved?"
