We've all been acculturated into accepting the inevitability of wrongful convictions, unfair sentences, racial bias, and racial disparities and discrimination against the poor.

We don't need police officers who see themselves as warriors. We need police officers who see themselves as guardians and parts of the community. You can't police a community that you're not a part of.

In most places, when people hear about or see something that is a symbol or representation or evidence of slavery or the slave trade or lynching, the instinct is to cover it up, to get rid of it, to destroy it.

Lynching is an important aspect of racial history and racial inequality in America, because it was visible, it was so public, it was so dramatic, and it was so violent.

If we want to be proud of our country, if we want to be proud as Americans, if we want to be proud of our history, then we can't talk about the things that are inconsistent with pride, about which we can have no pride.

The greatest evil of American slavery was not involuntary servitude but rather the narrative of racial differences we created to legitimate slavery. Because we never dealt with that evil, I don't think slavery ended in 1865, it just evolved.

The death penalty symbolizes whom we fear and don't fear, whom we care about and whose lives are not valid.