The largest single troubling issue with this decision is the question of, free to do what and where? What transpired as a result of this economic decision was to make the lives of people already over burdened with extremism and violence to be further barred from having an equal place in the community as citizens. The human rights and democratic conversation about how another person is treated and what responsibilities the rest of the world has toward these once captive people is a more engaging and difficult issue.
We have never taken responsibility to ensure that people are cared for and offered every opportunity to live together in this country.

The Emancipation Proclamation was long overdue. but the vestiges of the conditions that created a caste system of subjugation and captivity of other human beings has never been ameliorated. We have not done due diligence to ensure that the human rights struggle came to terms with what it means to be equal. Conditions for the newly freed people were even more difficult as a result of the economic opportunity that influenced President Lincoln’s decision.

I always consider in this moment the immortal words of Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr, “Thank God I am free, free at last.” Let us struggle and create the best of what this nation conceived in its infancy in the guiding principles of the Declaration of Independence.