06/10/2026
America has always demanded that Black people prove our humanity to a nation that has spent centuries denying it.
Let us be clear: America was not born innocent. It was not founded on fairness for all people. It was built on stolen land, enslaved bodies, racial terror, bigotry, and a Constitution that counted Black people as three-fifths of a human being — not because they saw us as people, but because they wanted power from our presence while denying dignity to our existence.
We must stop acting surprised when the system behaves according to its original design.
W.E.B. Du Bois warned us that the problem of America was the color line. Frederick Douglass reminded us that power concedes nothing without a demand. Ida B. Wells taught us to expose injustice no matter how uncomfortable the truth may be. Fannie Lou Hamer told us she was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Dr. King challenged the conscience of this nation, and Malcolm reminded us not to beg for humanity from those who profit from our oppression.
And Shirley Chisholm showed us what it means to stand unbought and unbossed in rooms never built for us.
So today, as we look at what happened in Texas with Karmelo Anthony, we must not look at it as one isolated verdict. We must look at it through the long lens of history. We can acknowledge tragedy and still question whether justice is being handed down equally. We can mourn loss and still ask why Black children are so often stripped of grace, context, protection, and the presumption of humanity.
When Roger B. Taney wrote in the Dred Scott decision that Black people had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” he was not simply speaking for one court. He was revealing the soul of a system.
And though laws have changed, the spirit behind some of those laws still shows up in courtrooms, classrooms, neighborhoods, policies, traffic stops, housing decisions, and verdicts.
Black America must remember: every right we have was fought for. Every door opened had to be pushed, kicked, prayed over, marched toward, organized around, and bled for.
This is not a call for hatred. This is a call for memory.
Because when a people forget history, they can be fooled into believing their suffering is accidental.
We are not three-fifths of anything.
We are whole.
We are human.
We are descendants of survivors, builders, thinkers, fighters, prophets, organizers, mothers, fathers, and freedom dreamers.
And we owe it to every ancestor who came before us — and every child coming after us — to stay awake, stay organized, stay courageous, and never allow America to rewrite the truth of what it has done or escape the responsibility of what it still must become.
