How many generations does it take to get over injustices? One? Two? Three? Forever?

Fourteen year old Emmett Till was killed two years before I was born, in 1955.

Three months before I was born, Governor George Wallace stood in front of a door at Foster Auditorium to keep two black students from entering.

When I was one year old, Dr. Martin Luther King was stabbed by Izola Ware Curry while signing copies of his first book.

In 1959 I would have been two years old. In this year, Mack Charles Parker, who was in jail after being accused of rape, was kidnapped from his cell, then beaten and shot. The FBI conducted an investigation but all the suspects were released. All the suspects died without facing any criminal charges.

In 1960 Blacks had to stand to eat at the Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro NC. The stools were reserved for white customers. Students from the nearby Agricultural and Technical State University conducted a sit-in to protest this policy.

When I reached four years of age in 1961, a Federal judge ordered two students admitted to UGA. Georgia appealed to the Supreme Court, but their appeal was denied.

I was five years old in 1962 when Congress passed the Twenty-fourth Ammendment, abolishing poll taxes.

In 1963, when I was six, quite a lot happened. Medgar Evers was assignated. Kennedy submitted his Civil Rights legislation and in his Inaugural Address, Governor George C. Wallace said "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."  Also in 1963 the University of Texas stopped banning black athletes from playing at the the varsity level.

The year of 1964, when I would have lived to the ripe old age of seven, is famous for being named after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 1965 I'm eight years old, and in third grade. That was when I fell off my bicycle and cracked my skull. Also that year, whips and clubs are used by police to stop a voting rights protest in Selma Alabama. And the voting rights act is passed by congress.

1966 is the year James Meredith was shot during a protest march in Missippi . He survived his injury. My ninth year of life.

Rules that prohibit interracial marriage were ruled unconstitutional in 1967. I was ten.

1968, Martin Luther King is shot and killed. Nixon is elected.

I'm all of twelve years of age in 1969 when the Supreme Court orders the immediate desegregation of 33 Mississippi school districts.

1970 is here and at age thirteen I'm in Junior High School. Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox passed out replicas of ax handles in memory of the ones used to bar blacks from his restaurant. 'When challenged by Rep Charles C. Diggs Jr. he accused the black Congressman of acting like "an ass and baboon."'

1971, I was fourteen. The Supreme Court ordered bussing to be implemented to achieve racial balance in school systems.

When I reached the age of fifteen, during the year of 1972, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act was passed.

Maynard Jackson becomes the first African-American mayor of a major Southern city, during the sixteenth year of my life. The year was 1973.

In 1974, when I was 17, Juanita W. Goggins became the first black woman elected to the South Carolina legislature. She died on 2/20/10 but no one found her body for 11 days.

I graduated from High School in 1975. That year a pamphlet passed out in a Boston neighborhood contained the following verbiage: "Last year, a whole lot of Black students got mixed up with the police and the courts because they just did not know what to do and what NOT to do."

1976. I'm 18 and I can vote! The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976 act is passed. It allows for the award of attorneys' fees for the prevailing party in civil rights cases.

In 2008 we elected a black president.

As of 2010 there are:
Baseball:  5 black major league managers

Football: 9 Black football coaches in the NFL

Basketball: Nine black head coaches in NBA

Here's my thought on this.  It seems unreasonable to expect the effects of discrimination to disappear in my lifetime when so many black Americans where subjected to disparate treatment, based upon their race, during my generation.

BTW-Comments are GREATLY appreciated!