An Impressively Researched And Documented Collection Of

All Historians Generalize From Particulars. And Often, If You Look At A Historian's Footnotes, The Number Of Examples Of Specific Cases Is Very, Very Small.

The Biggest Surprise For Me, Without A Doubt, Was That The First Black People Who Came To The United States Weren't The 20 Who Arrived In Jamestown In 1619. All Of Us Had Been Taught That. The First African Came To Florida In 1513. And The Huge Shock Is We Know His Name, Juan Garrido, And That He Wasn't A Slave. He Was Free!

I Think That We Need More Economic-based Solutions To The Problems Afflicting The Black Community, And I Think That That's A Way To Redefine Affirmative Action. I Grew Up With Poor White People In West Virginia, And I Know There's A Culture Of Poverty. I Know That I've Seen White People Perform Exactly The Same Pathological Forms Of Behavior As Black People Do When They're Systematically Deprived, Whether It's Getting Pregnant, Doing Drugs, Dropping Out Of School, Whatever We're Talking About. I Think That We Should Have Affirmative Action For Poor White People Too.

Suffering Does Not Necessarily Ennoble You.

Because Lincoln Is So Closely Identified With What It Is To Be American, Everyone Wants To Claim Him, To Rewrite His Story To Satisfy Their Own Particular Needs.