【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 ays making the other wrong, at anindividual as well as global level.
　　And then there is the issue of race, which was foremost on the mind of Lincoln back in 1838. Itis still here with us today. The jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis told me that healing thisquestion of race was what amp。quot。the kingdom needed in order to be well.amp。quot。 Before the enormousstrides in equality achieved in statutes and laws in the 150 years since the Civil War thatLincoln correctly predicted would e are in danger of being undone by our still imperfecthuman nature and by politicians who now insist on a hypocritical colorblindness amp。ndash。 after fourcenturies of discrimination. That discrimination now takes on new, sometimes subtler, lessobvious but still malevolent forms today. The chains of slavery have been broken, thank God,and so too has the feudal dependence of sharecroppers as the vengeful Jim Crow era recedes(sort of) into the distant past. But now in places like amp。ndash。 but not limited to amp。ndash。 your otherneighbors a few miles as the crow flies from here in Ferguson, we see the ghastly remnants ofour great shame emerging still, the shame Lincoln thought would lead to national suicide, ourinability to see beyond the color of someoneamp。39。s skin. It has been with us since our founding.
　　When Thomas Jefferson wrote that immortal second sentence of the Declaration that begins, amp。quot。We hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal……。,amp。quot。 he owned more thana hundred human beings. He never saw the contradiction, he never saw the hypocrisy, andmore important never saw fit in his lifetime to free any one of those human beings, ensuring aswe went forward that the young United States amp。ndash。 born with such glorious promise amp。ndash。 would bebedeviled by race, that it would take a bloody, bloody Civil War to even begin to redress theimbalance.
　　But the shame continues: prison populations exploding with young black men, young black menkilled almost weekly by policemen, whole munities of color burdened by corruptmunicipalities that resemble more the predatory pany store of a supposedly bygone erathan a responsible local government. Our cities and towns and suburbs cannot bee modernplantations.
　　It is unconscionable, as you emerge from this privileged sanctuary, that a few miles fromhere amp。ndash。 and nearly everywhere else in America: Baltimore, New York City, North Charleston,Cleveland, Oklahoma, Sanford, Florida, nearly everywhere else amp。ndash。 we are still playing out, sadly,an utterly American story, that the same stultifying conditions and sentiments that brought onour Civil War are still on such vivid and unpleasant display. Today, today. Thereamp。39。s nothingnew under the sun.
　　Many years after our Civil War, in 1883, Mark Twain took up writing in earnest a novel he hadstarted and abandoned several times over the last halfdozen years. It would be a different kindof story from his celebrated Tom Sawyer book, told this time in the plain language of hisMissouri boyhood amp。ndash。 and it would be his masterpiece.
　　Set near here, before the Civil War and emancipation, amp。lsquo。the Adventures of Huckleberry Fi