While the banks got big bailouts, a sizeable chunk of African-American wealth evaporated because so many people lost homes.

I especially appreciated hearing the President [Barack Obama] affirm that "black lives matter" and that it means that some citizens are feeling more pain, and experiencing more negative effects than others, and he offered up the stats. He also indicated that black lives matter does not negate the fact that blue lives matter. He ably walked the tightrope, here, between affirming both black life and police life.

I serve on the Institute of the Black World's National Commission on African-American Reparations, and we have asked the President [Barack Obama] to, by executive order, establish a commission to study reparations. He can do this without Congressional approval. While I am not optimistic, I do hope that President Obama considers this in these waning months of his Presidency.

This is a column collection, or as one colleague called it, "history in real time," recounting my perspective on the highs and lows of this presidency from an African-American perspective. More than simply a column collection, the book has a substantial introduction that frames the [Barack] Obama presidency, explores the way Obama was treated by the political establishment and also how this first black president treated "his" people. In the epilogue, I use numbers to tell the story of African-American gains and losses during this presidency.

If some of the recovery money had gone to cities instead of states, the urban population, read "Black" and "Brown," would be better off with recovery jobs.

I think the takeaway from not holding President Obama accountable is, no matter how enthusiastic you are about Hillary Clinton, no matter how enthusiastic you are, the first thing that needs to happen is that people need to start planning how to hold her accountable.

Indeed, as soon as he took office, Senator Mitch McConnell announced that his top priority was to deny President [Barack] Obama a second term.