From the perspective of most white Americans, this inequality was natural, unobjectionable, and beneficial, and race relations were good since segregation rendered African Americans safely invisible. However, African Americans saw segregation for what it was—not some benign system of racial accommodation, but a blatant and degrading attempt to maintain white privilege—and responded by initiating a continuing struggle for equality and empowerment. The record of this struggle is mixed, and is often confused as much by wishful thinking as by theories of culture and race that conflict with historical facts, the findings of modern science, or even basic common sense.

The United States is no longer a legally segregated society. Formal and informal contacts between black and white Americans now occur with unprecedented frequency and often evolve into personal relationships. Unlike in past generations, African Americans are no longer limited to low status "Negro jobs" in the larger economy or to business and professional niches in their segregated communities. Clearly, patterns of inter-racial social relations have changed for many Americans. Yet, most Americans still live in racially segregated neighborhoods. Children of all races attend non-segregated public schools, but usually find themselves grouped or "tracked" into racially identifiable classes or magnet programs. African Americans are still half as likely to graduate from college, three to four times more likely to be unemployed and, if employed, to earn lower wages than (ca. 60 percent) and to hold positions subordinate to whites. African Americans remain vulnerable to discriminatory and often brutal treatment by police and the courts—and to racial profiling by businesses and in public spaces. Recent incidents at Texaco and other corporations indicate that racism is as common in high places as in low and that attacks on affirmative action are simply thinly veiled attempts to limit equal opportunity. Despite these obvious examples of inequality, many Americans still believe that race has "declined in significance" as a national issue.

For many African Americans, the embeddedness of racism and inequality raises grave doubts as to the possibility of integration and heightens the appeal of separatist or nationalist philosophies. In my view, these alternative philosophies may be valid psychologically, but to have practical applicability must be reformulated to fit the conditions facing African Americans in this place and time. In a society of groups, African Americans must pursue and can achieve equality only as a group, through pluralism—not solely as individuals and not as though they were an independent nation. To do so, African Americans must establish private organizations and institutions to preserve group identity and cultural traditions, and to serve instrumental purposes in the struggle for political, economic, and educational equality. Through such structures, African Americans must also form alliances with other people of color nationally and internationally, and with whites committed to racial justice. In other words, African Americans must pursue all the rights and opportunities associated with American citizenship, while rejecting discrimination and the sexism and classism so common among white Americans. African Americans must also insist on the freedom to be as integrated or as self-segregated as they choose in those domains of life where such choices make sense. And, as Frederick Douglass stated in 1894, white Americans must "live up to their own Constitution" and move beyond lip service to action and institutional change.

A society in which race has no meaning may not evolve for centuries and African Americans cannot wait for all whites to have a change of heart and mind. However, racial diversity and racial equality need not be incompatible. Race relations in the American future will depend on whether this "either-or" can become a "both-and" proposition.

Recognizing these problems, a group of local African Americans developed an "African American Strategic Plan," completed in January 1998, focusing on the need to address inequalities in education, economic development, employment, wealth-building, and health and social wellness, including drugs and crime. It is a sad but telling irony that many of the same issues were raised by African Americans in 1866.

J. Blaine Hudson is an assistant professor in the Department of Pan-African Studies at U of L. His teaching and research interests are race, education, and the history of persons of African descent throughout the world.