On this day, September 15, 1963, a bomb went off in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

[usonian]

2. Racism is the stain on America's soul.

Slavery was glossed over, hence allowed to flourish, in the constitution itself.

https://www.history.com/news/declaration-of-independence-deleted-anti-slavery-clause-jefferson

What isn’t widely known, however, is that Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, in an early version of the Declaration, drafted a 168-word passage that condemned slavery as one of the many evils foisted upon the colonies by the British crown. The passage was cut from the final wording.

So while Jefferson is credited with infusing the Declaration with Enlightenment-derived ideals of freedom and equality, the nation’s founding document—its moral mission statement—would remain forever silent on the issue of slavery. That omission would create a legacy of exclusion for people of African descent that resulted in centuries of struggle over basic human and civil rights.

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The removal was mostly fueled by political and economic expediencies.

While the 13 colonies were already deeply divided on the issue of slavery, both the South and the North had financial stakes in perpetuating it. Southern plantations, a key engine of the colonial economy, needed free labor to produce tobacco, cotton and other cash crops for export back to Europe. Northern shipping merchants, who also played a role in that economy, remained dependent on the triangle trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas that included the traffic of enslaved Africans.

Actions, and Inactions, have consequences.

Never compromise on fundamental issues of human rights. To do so is to make a deal with the devil, and look at the price the nation has paid, and which it continues to pay, for racism and worship of the almighty dollar.