There are many great things about America and its history but guess what. It all isn’t and wasn’t great.

I’ve been putting off writing and posting articles like this. That’s because I’ve written things like it before on my blog, on social media, and in my book, Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind, and when I do I get quite a bit of unkind comments.

• It’s not great when Americans personally insult and attack fellow Americans because of their political beliefs.
• It wasn’t great when government forced Americans to segregate.
• It wasn’t great when the laws of America made human trafficking (called slavery) legal enterprise.
• It wasn’t great that millions of people in America and their children and descendants were forcibly held in lifelong labor without pay, bought and sold, not allowed to learn to read, and denied all human rights.
• It wasn’t great when more than 4,000 American citizens were publicly lynched without a trial between 1880 and 1960. (Go see “the lynching memorial” in Montgomery, Alabama.)
• It wasn’t great when Americas began to systematically attack each other and about 600,000 people were cruelly killed, while untold numbers of people were injured in the Civil War.
• It wasn’t great when about 100,000 people were marched from their homelands in the eastern USA to what is now Oklahoma, and many thousands died on their way. The victims called it The Trail of Tears.
• It wasn’t great when Americans were disfranchised in the South and kept from voting for many decades because of the color of their skin.
• It wasn’t great when the Supreme Court made prenatal human life disposable.
• It wasn’t great when the American capitol building was attacked by violent rioters in an attempt to overturn a presidential election.
• It wasn’t great when on numerous occasions some protestors became rioters and began to deface, burn, or destroy property and it wasn’t great when all protesters of a particular skin shade were falsely accused of doing that.
• It isn’t great when people are insulted for wanting to tell the fuller story about America and its history.

Be great! Get to know the broader history of America.