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My dad always flew an American flag in our front yard. The blue paint on our two-story house was perennially chipping; the fence， or the rail by the stairs， or the front door， existed in a perpetual state of disrepair， but that flag always flew pristine.
My dad was born into a family of sharecroppers on a white plantation in Greenwood， Miss.， where black people bent over cotton from can’t-see-in-the-morning to can’t-see-at-night， just as their enslaved ancestors had done not long before. The Mississippi of my dad’s youth was an apartheid state that subjugated its near-majority black population through breathtaking acts of violence. White residents in Mississippi lynched more black people than those in any other state in the country， often for such “crimes” as entering a room occupied by white women， bumping into a white girl or trying to start a sharecroppers union.
So when I was young， that flag outside our home never made sense to me. How could this black man， having seen firsthand the way his country abused black Americans， how it refused to treat us as full citizens， proudly fly its banner？
Like most young people， I thought I understood so much， when in fact I understood so little. My father knew exactly what he was doing when he raised that flag. He knew that our people’s contributions to building the richest and most powerful nation in the world were indelible， that the United States simply would not exist without us.
In August 1619， the Jamestown colonists bought 20 to 30 enslaved Africans from English pirates. Those men and women who came ashore on that August day were the beginning of American slavery.
Before the abolishment of the international slave trade， 400，000 enslaved Africans would be sold into America. Those individuals and their descendants transformed the lands to which they’d been brought into some of the most successful colonies in the British Empire. Through backbreaking labor， they cleared the land across the Southeast. They taught the colonists to grow rice. They grew and picked the cotton that at the height of slavery was the nation’s most valuable commodity， accounting for half of all American exports and 66 percent of the world’s supply. They lugged the heavy wooden tracks of the railroads that crisscrossed the South and that helped take the cotton they picked to the Northern textile mills， fueling the Industrial Revolution.
But it would be historically inaccurate to reduce the contributions of black people to the vast material wealth created by our bondage. The very first person to die for this country in the American Revolution was a black man who himself was not free. Crispus Attucks was a fugitive from slavery， yet he gave his life for a new nation in which his own people would not enjoy the liberties laid out in the Declaration for another century. In every war this nation has waged since that first one， black Americans have fought—today we are the most likely of all racial groups to serve in the United States military.
The shameful paradox of continuing chattel slavery in a nation founded on individual freedom， scholars today assert， led to a hardening of the racial caste system. This ideology， reinforced not just by laws but by racist science and literature， maintained that black people were subhuman， a belief that allowed white Americans to live with their betrayal. While liberty was the inalienable right of the people who would be considered white， enslavement and subjugation became the natural station of people who had any discernible drop of “black” blood.
The Supreme Court enshrined this thinking in the law in its 1857 Dred Scott decision1， ruling that black people， whether enslaved or free， came from a “slave” race. If black people could not ever be citizens， if they were a caste apart from all other humans， then they did not require the rights bestowed by the Constitution， and the “we” in the “We the People”2 was not a lie.
On Aug. 14， 1862， President Abraham Lincoln called a group of five esteemed free black men to the White House for a meeting. The Civil War had been raging for more than a year， and black abolitionists， who had been increasingly pressuring Lincoln to end slavery， must have felt a sense of great anticipation and pride.
The war was not going well for Lincoln. Britain was contemplating whether to intervene on the Confederacy’s behalf， and Lincoln， unable to draw enough new white volunteers for the war， was forced to reconsider his opposition to allowing black Americans to fight for their own liberation. That August day， as the men arrived at the White House， they were greeted by the towering Lincoln. After exchanging a few niceties， Lincoln got right to it. He informed his guests that he had gotten Congress to appropriate funds to ship black people， once freed， to another country.
You can imagine the heavy silence in that room， as the weight of what the president said momentarily stole the breath of these five black men. It was 243 years to the month since the first of their ancestors had arrived on these shores， before Lincoln’s family， long before most of the white people insisting that this was not their country. “Without the institution of slavery and the colored race as a basis， the war could not have an existence，” the president told them. “It is better for us both， therefore， to be separated.” Nearly three years after that White House meeting， Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. By summer， the Civil War was over， and four million black Americans were suddenly free. Contrary to Lincoln’s view， most were not inclined to leave， agreeing with the sentiment of a resolution against black colonization put forward at a convention of black leaders in New York some decades before：
“This is our home， and this is our country. Beneath its sod lie the bones of our fathers. ... Here we were born， and here we will die.”
在我们家前院，始终飘扬着一面美国国旗，是爸爸挂上去的。我家两层小楼外墙涂的蓝色面漆年复一年地剥落，无论是篱笆、楼梯的扶手还是前门，都是一副年久失修的模样，只有那面飘扬的旗子，永远都是崭新的。
我的爸爸出生于一户佃农家庭，生活在密西西比州格林伍德的一个白人种植园。在那儿，黑人就像不久前还遭受奴役的祖辈一样，弯着腰采摘棉花，天没亮就开始，夜色沉沉才收工。爸爸年轻时，密西西比州依旧实行种族隔离，以令人窒息的暴力行径镇压着已近多数的黑人。美国哪个州都没有比密西西比州的白人用私刑处死的黑人多，他们经常宣称的“罪行”包括黑人闯进一间白人女性居住的屋子、撞到一个白人姑娘或是意图建立佃农工会等等。
因此，年轻的时候我一直觉得屋外的这面旗子毫无意义。作为一个黑人，爸爸亲眼目睹了他的祖国怎样虐待黑人，怎样拒把黑人当成享有完整权利的公民，他怎么还能自豪地悬挂着它的旗帜？
我像大部分年轻人一样，自以为懂得很多，其实几乎什么也不明白。父亲升起那面国旗的时候，他清楚地知道自己在做什么。他知道，我们黑人對这个财富与国力举世无双的国家所做出的贡献是无法抹去的，没有我们，美国根本不会存在。
1619年8月，詹姆斯敦的殖民地居民从英国海盗那儿买来了二三十个非洲奴隶。这些非洲奴隶上岸的那天，便是美国奴隶制的起点。
在废除全球性奴隶贸易之前，有40万非洲奴隶被贩卖到了美国。这些黑人和他们的后代将这片他们被迫来到的异乡改造成大英帝国最为成功的殖民地之一。他们从事着繁重的体力劳动，开垦了美国东南部的土地。他们教会殖民地居民种植水稻。他们种植、采摘棉花;这是美国奴隶制度鼎盛时期最富价值的商品，其出口占全美商品出口的一半，其产出占世界总产出的66%。他们还拖着沉重的木轨，搭建起纵横交错的南方铁路;他们采摘的棉花沿着铁路运往北方的纺织厂，为工业革命添柴加薪。
但是，如果认为黑人做出的贡献仅仅包括黑人受到奴役期间所创造的大量物质财富，就并没有了解历史的真实全貌。
在美国独立战争中，为这个国家牺牲的第一个人是黑人，可他却不是一个自由人。他是克里斯珀斯·阿塔克斯，一个逃奴，他为一个新生国家献出了自己的生命，可在这个国家，他的同胞在往后一个世纪的时间里，依然没能享受到《独立宣言》中所描述的自由权。从美国独立战争肇始，这个国家发动的每一场战争中，非裔美国人无不在列——如今，我们黑人是美国所有种族中最可能参军入伍的。
如今的学者确信，一个建立在个人自由基础上的国家却继续实行奴隶制，这个可鄙的悖论导致了种族等级制度的固化。这种意识形态不仅因法律，也因科学与文学种族主义而强化，认定黑人是次等人种。这种观念纵容了美国白人对自己背离立国理念的行为装聋作哑。自由权是白人不可剥夺的权利，然而，拥有哪怕一滴明显“黑人”血统的人，都自然而然被归入奴隶阶层和次等种族。
美国最高法院在1857年对德雷德·斯科特的裁决中将这一思想载入法律：黑人，无论是奴隶还是自由人，都来自“奴隶”种族。假如黑人永远无法成为公民，假如黑人是一个有别于所有其他人种的种族，那么他们就不能要求获得宪法给予的权利，这样，“我们合众国人民”中的“我们”就不是一个谎言。
1862年8月14日，亚伯拉罕·林肯总统召集了5名备受尊敬的黑人自由民到白宫开会。内战已经持续一年多，黑人废奴主义者一直在向林肯施压，要求他结束奴隶制，他们肯定非常期待、满怀自豪。
对林肯来说，战事并不顺利。英国正在考虑是否要支持南部邦联而出面干预，而林肯由于无法征召足够多新的白人志愿者参战，被迫重新考虑是否继续反对征召美国黑人为他们自己的解放而战。8月的那天，5名黑人自由民到达白宫，高大的林肯迎接了他们。礼节性地交谈几句之后，林肯直奔主题，告诉客人们他已经让国会拨款，一旦黑人获得自由后，就把他们运送到另一个国家。
可以想象房间里沉重的静默，总统这番话一时间让5名黑人张口结舌、目瞪口呆。从黑人的第一批祖先到达这片海岸，到这一年的8月，已有243年，他们比林肯的家族来得早，比大多数坚持认为黑人不属于这个国家的白人要早得多。总统告诉他们：“要不是因为奴隶制度和有色种族，这场战争不可能会发生。所以我们两个种族分开，对双方都更好。”
在那次白宫会议近3年之后，罗伯特·爱德华·李将军在阿波马托克斯投降。到了夏天，内战结束，400万美国黑人突然获得了自由。与林肯的想法不同，大多数黑人并不愿意离开。他们认同的观点，是数十年前，在纽约的一场黑人领袖大会上提出的反对“黑人殖民”政策的决议：
“这是我们的家园，这是我们的国家。这片土地下面，掩埋着我们父辈的尸骨……我们在这里出生，也将在这里死去。”
My dad was born into a family of sharecroppers on a white plantation in Greenwood， Miss.， where black people bent over cotton from can’t-see-in-the-morning to can’t-see-at-night， just as their enslaved ancestors had done not long before. The Mississippi of my dad’s youth was an apartheid state that subjugated its near-majority black population through breathtaking acts of violence. White residents in Mississippi lynched more black people than those in any other state in the country， often for such “crimes” as entering a room occupied by white women， bumping into a white girl or trying to start a sharecroppers union.
So when I was young， that flag outside our home never made sense to me. How could this black man， having seen firsthand the way his country abused black Americans， how it refused to treat us as full citizens， proudly fly its banner？
Like most young people， I thought I understood so much， when in fact I understood so little. My father knew exactly what he was doing when he raised that flag. He knew that our people’s contributions to building the richest and most powerful nation in the world were indelible， that the United States simply would not exist without us.
In August 1619， the Jamestown colonists bought 20 to 30 enslaved Africans from English pirates. Those men and women who came ashore on that August day were the beginning of American slavery.
Before the abolishment of the international slave trade， 400，000 enslaved Africans would be sold into America. Those individuals and their descendants transformed the lands to which they’d been brought into some of the most successful colonies in the British Empire. Through backbreaking labor， they cleared the land across the Southeast. They taught the colonists to grow rice. They grew and picked the cotton that at the height of slavery was the nation’s most valuable commodity， accounting for half of all American exports and 66 percent of the world’s supply. They lugged the heavy wooden tracks of the railroads that crisscrossed the South and that helped take the cotton they picked to the Northern textile mills， fueling the Industrial Revolution.
But it would be historically inaccurate to reduce the contributions of black people to the vast material wealth created by our bondage. The very first person to die for this country in the American Revolution was a black man who himself was not free. Crispus Attucks was a fugitive from slavery， yet he gave his life for a new nation in which his own people would not enjoy the liberties laid out in the Declaration for another century. In every war this nation has waged since that first one， black Americans have fought—today we are the most likely of all racial groups to serve in the United States military.
The shameful paradox of continuing chattel slavery in a nation founded on individual freedom， scholars today assert， led to a hardening of the racial caste system. This ideology， reinforced not just by laws but by racist science and literature， maintained that black people were subhuman， a belief that allowed white Americans to live with their betrayal. While liberty was the inalienable right of the people who would be considered white， enslavement and subjugation became the natural station of people who had any discernible drop of “black” blood.
The Supreme Court enshrined this thinking in the law in its 1857 Dred Scott decision1， ruling that black people， whether enslaved or free， came from a “slave” race. If black people could not ever be citizens， if they were a caste apart from all other humans， then they did not require the rights bestowed by the Constitution， and the “we” in the “We the People”2 was not a lie.
On Aug. 14， 1862， President Abraham Lincoln called a group of five esteemed free black men to the White House for a meeting. The Civil War had been raging for more than a year， and black abolitionists， who had been increasingly pressuring Lincoln to end slavery， must have felt a sense of great anticipation and pride.
The war was not going well for Lincoln. Britain was contemplating whether to intervene on the Confederacy’s behalf， and Lincoln， unable to draw enough new white volunteers for the war， was forced to reconsider his opposition to allowing black Americans to fight for their own liberation. That August day， as the men arrived at the White House， they were greeted by the towering Lincoln. After exchanging a few niceties， Lincoln got right to it. He informed his guests that he had gotten Congress to appropriate funds to ship black people， once freed， to another country.
You can imagine the heavy silence in that room， as the weight of what the president said momentarily stole the breath of these five black men. It was 243 years to the month since the first of their ancestors had arrived on these shores， before Lincoln’s family， long before most of the white people insisting that this was not their country. “Without the institution of slavery and the colored race as a basis， the war could not have an existence，” the president told them. “It is better for us both， therefore， to be separated.” Nearly three years after that White House meeting， Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. By summer， the Civil War was over， and four million black Americans were suddenly free. Contrary to Lincoln’s view， most were not inclined to leave， agreeing with the sentiment of a resolution against black colonization put forward at a convention of black leaders in New York some decades before：
“This is our home， and this is our country. Beneath its sod lie the bones of our fathers. ... Here we were born， and here we will die.”
在我们家前院，始终飘扬着一面美国国旗，是爸爸挂上去的。我家两层小楼外墙涂的蓝色面漆年复一年地剥落，无论是篱笆、楼梯的扶手还是前门，都是一副年久失修的模样，只有那面飘扬的旗子，永远都是崭新的。
我的爸爸出生于一户佃农家庭，生活在密西西比州格林伍德的一个白人种植园。在那儿，黑人就像不久前还遭受奴役的祖辈一样，弯着腰采摘棉花，天没亮就开始，夜色沉沉才收工。爸爸年轻时，密西西比州依旧实行种族隔离，以令人窒息的暴力行径镇压着已近多数的黑人。美国哪个州都没有比密西西比州的白人用私刑处死的黑人多，他们经常宣称的“罪行”包括黑人闯进一间白人女性居住的屋子、撞到一个白人姑娘或是意图建立佃农工会等等。
因此，年轻的时候我一直觉得屋外的这面旗子毫无意义。作为一个黑人，爸爸亲眼目睹了他的祖国怎样虐待黑人，怎样拒把黑人当成享有完整权利的公民，他怎么还能自豪地悬挂着它的旗帜？
我像大部分年轻人一样，自以为懂得很多，其实几乎什么也不明白。父亲升起那面国旗的时候，他清楚地知道自己在做什么。他知道，我们黑人對这个财富与国力举世无双的国家所做出的贡献是无法抹去的，没有我们，美国根本不会存在。
1619年8月，詹姆斯敦的殖民地居民从英国海盗那儿买来了二三十个非洲奴隶。这些非洲奴隶上岸的那天，便是美国奴隶制的起点。
在废除全球性奴隶贸易之前，有40万非洲奴隶被贩卖到了美国。这些黑人和他们的后代将这片他们被迫来到的异乡改造成大英帝国最为成功的殖民地之一。他们从事着繁重的体力劳动，开垦了美国东南部的土地。他们教会殖民地居民种植水稻。他们种植、采摘棉花;这是美国奴隶制度鼎盛时期最富价值的商品，其出口占全美商品出口的一半，其产出占世界总产出的66%。他们还拖着沉重的木轨，搭建起纵横交错的南方铁路;他们采摘的棉花沿着铁路运往北方的纺织厂，为工业革命添柴加薪。
但是，如果认为黑人做出的贡献仅仅包括黑人受到奴役期间所创造的大量物质财富，就并没有了解历史的真实全貌。
在美国独立战争中，为这个国家牺牲的第一个人是黑人，可他却不是一个自由人。他是克里斯珀斯·阿塔克斯，一个逃奴，他为一个新生国家献出了自己的生命，可在这个国家，他的同胞在往后一个世纪的时间里，依然没能享受到《独立宣言》中所描述的自由权。从美国独立战争肇始，这个国家发动的每一场战争中，非裔美国人无不在列——如今，我们黑人是美国所有种族中最可能参军入伍的。
如今的学者确信，一个建立在个人自由基础上的国家却继续实行奴隶制，这个可鄙的悖论导致了种族等级制度的固化。这种意识形态不仅因法律，也因科学与文学种族主义而强化，认定黑人是次等人种。这种观念纵容了美国白人对自己背离立国理念的行为装聋作哑。自由权是白人不可剥夺的权利，然而，拥有哪怕一滴明显“黑人”血统的人，都自然而然被归入奴隶阶层和次等种族。
美国最高法院在1857年对德雷德·斯科特的裁决中将这一思想载入法律：黑人，无论是奴隶还是自由人，都来自“奴隶”种族。假如黑人永远无法成为公民，假如黑人是一个有别于所有其他人种的种族，那么他们就不能要求获得宪法给予的权利，这样，“我们合众国人民”中的“我们”就不是一个谎言。
1862年8月14日，亚伯拉罕·林肯总统召集了5名备受尊敬的黑人自由民到白宫开会。内战已经持续一年多，黑人废奴主义者一直在向林肯施压，要求他结束奴隶制，他们肯定非常期待、满怀自豪。
对林肯来说，战事并不顺利。英国正在考虑是否要支持南部邦联而出面干预，而林肯由于无法征召足够多新的白人志愿者参战，被迫重新考虑是否继续反对征召美国黑人为他们自己的解放而战。8月的那天，5名黑人自由民到达白宫，高大的林肯迎接了他们。礼节性地交谈几句之后，林肯直奔主题，告诉客人们他已经让国会拨款，一旦黑人获得自由后，就把他们运送到另一个国家。
可以想象房间里沉重的静默，总统这番话一时间让5名黑人张口结舌、目瞪口呆。从黑人的第一批祖先到达这片海岸，到这一年的8月，已有243年，他们比林肯的家族来得早，比大多数坚持认为黑人不属于这个国家的白人要早得多。总统告诉他们：“要不是因为奴隶制度和有色种族，这场战争不可能会发生。所以我们两个种族分开，对双方都更好。”
在那次白宫会议近3年之后，罗伯特·爱德华·李将军在阿波马托克斯投降。到了夏天，内战结束，400万美国黑人突然获得了自由。与林肯的想法不同，大多数黑人并不愿意离开。他们认同的观点，是数十年前，在纽约的一场黑人领袖大会上提出的反对“黑人殖民”政策的决议：
“这是我们的家园，这是我们的国家。这片土地下面，掩埋着我们父辈的尸骨……我们在这里出生，也将在这里死去。”