1619–2026: UNITED STATES JUSTICE: JUST US, OR IS IT JUST ME

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A Conversation With America About History, Law, Race, and the Unfinished Promise of Justice

America will celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2026 with ceremonies, speeches, fireworks, parades, and reflections upon nearly two and a half centuries of American independence. But there is another clock. For Black Americans, the American story did not begin in 1776. It reaches back to 1619, when Africans arrived on the shores of Virginia and became part of the economic, political, legal, and moral foundation of the nation that would eventually become the United States of America. From 1619 to 2026, 407 years have passed. That difference matters.

1619–2026: United States Justice: Just Us, or Is It Just Me? asks America to examine those 407 years—not simply as a collection of historical events, but as a continuing legal, economic, political, and human story. The book asks a fundamental question: Who has received the full protection of American justice, who has been required to wait for it, and who has paid the price when the promises of American democracy were not equally kept?

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

I did not write this book solely as a historian looking backward. I wrote it as a Black woman who has lived in America, as an educator who taught children, as a public defender who stood beside people accused of crimes and witnessed the enormous power of the government over an individual life, as an attorney who spent years inside courtrooms, and as a judge who sat on the bench, presided over thousands of cases, and carried the responsibility of applying the law fairly.

I also write as a legal analyst who has examined crime, justice, and human behavior beyond the courtroom, and now as a retired judge whose robe is off—but whose voice remains. For more than four decades, I have observed America from classrooms, courtrooms, communities, and the bench. I have seen the extraordinary power of the law to protect human dignity. I have also seen the consequences when the law fails to deliver equally upon its promises. This book was born from those experiences.

THE STORY DID NOT BEGIN IN 1776

The United States declared its independence in 1776 with words that would become among the most powerful statements of human freedom ever written: “All men are created equal.” Yet, at the time those words were written, slavery was legal. Black men, women, and children were bought, sold, inherited, mortgaged, separated from their families, and denied control over their labor, their bodies, and their lives.

The contradiction between the promise of American liberty and the reality of American slavery would shape the nation for generations. The wealth created by enslaved labor did not disappear when slavery ended, and the consequences of exclusion did not disappear with emancipation. The Civil War came. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, except as punishment for crime. The 14th Amendment promised citizenship and equal protection of the laws. The 15th Amendment prohibited denying the right to vote based on race. Reconstruction created extraordinary possibilities for Black political participation and advancement.

Then came the backlash: Jim Crow, racial terror, disenfranchisement, segregation, unequal schools, housing discrimination, redlining, restrictive covenants, employment discrimination, and generation after generation of Americans continuing the struggle to make the promises written into the Constitution real. The law changed. America changed. But the fundamental question remained: Justice for whom?

JUSTICE. JUST US. OR IS IT JUST ME?

The title of this book is deliberately a question because justice must be examined not only through laws, court decisions, and institutions, but also through the lived experiences of people. What happens when justice exists in theory but is delayed in practice? What happens when the Constitution promises equality, yet access to wealth, housing, education, political power, and legal protection develops differently across generations? What happens when a nation celebrates progress without fully accounting for the cost of the journey? And what responsibility do we have to tell the truth about that history?

These questions are not intended to divide America. They are intended to challenge America to live up to its highest ideals.

407 YEARS OF AMERICAN HISTORY

1619–2026 examines the long journey from the arrival of Africans in colonial Virginia through America’s 250th anniversary. The book explores slavery and the enormous economic value extracted from generations of enslaved people; the Constitution and the laws that determined who could belong; the Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments; Jim Crow and racial violence; voting rights and the Civil Rights Movement; the creation of Black institutions, churches, communities, and historically Black colleges and universities; and the systematic denial of opportunities to build and transfer generational wealth.

The book also examines the evolution of American racial classifications and immigration, housing discrimination and redlining, race and the criminal justice system, policing and incarceration, the contributions of Black Americans to science, medicine, agriculture, culture, education, law, and American democracy, the modern struggle over diversity, equity, inclusion, voting rights, and equal protection, and the continuing debate over reparations and what America owes to the descendants of people whose labor helped build the nation.

But this book is not only about what was done to Black Americans. It is also about what Black Americans built. Families. Churches. Schools. Businesses. Communities. Movements. Music. Literature. Scientific discoveries. Legal victories. Political institutions. Black Americans created an extraordinary tradition of faith, resistance, service, achievement, innovation, and survival despite centuries of legal and institutional barriers.

THE VIEW FROM THE BENCH

My professional life has given me a particular perspective on justice. Before becoming a lawyer, I was an educator. Before becoming a judge, I was a public defender and trial attorney. I stood beside individuals whose freedom was at stake. Later, I sat on the other side of the courtroom. I wore the robe. I presided over civil, criminal, and family matters, and I witnessed people encounter the justice system during some of the most difficult moments of their lives.

Those experiences taught me something fundamental: The law is powerful, but the law is not self-executing. Justice depends upon the people who write the laws, the people who enforce them, the lawyers who argue them, the judges who interpret them, the citizens who challenge them, and the generations willing to demand that the nation become what its founding documents promised it could be.

THIS IS NOT AN INDICTMENT OF AMERICA

I love this country enough to ask difficult questions of it. Patriotism should not require historical amnesia. Progress should not require silence about injustice. Acknowledging the failures of our past does not diminish America. It gives America the opportunity to grow.

That is why I describe this book as a conversation with America—a conversation about where we began, who paid the price for America’s development, who was excluded from the promises of citizenship, the extraordinary contributions Black Americans made despite those exclusions, how far we have traveled, and how much farther we still have to go.

THE ROBE IS OFF. THE VOICE REMAINS.

There was a time when the responsibilities of judicial office required me to measure my public words carefully. Today, I stand in a different season of my life. The robe is off, but my commitment to justice remains. I have spent more than four decades serving, teaching, advocating, practicing law, presiding over cases, analyzing the justice system, and working in communities. Now I write.

I write because history must be remembered and the law must be understood. I write because generations who came before us paid an extraordinary price for rights that cannot be taken for granted. I write because the next generation deserves the truth. And I write because the American story is still being written.

AN INVITATION TO THE READER

Whether you are Black or white, young or old, conservative or progressive, a student, educator, lawyer, person of faith, or simply someone seeking to understand America more deeply, I invite you into this conversation. You do not have to agree with every conclusion, and you do not have to begin the book seeing America exactly as I do. I ask only that you enter the conversation willing to examine the evidence, confront the history, question inherited assumptions, and consider what justice requires of us now.

Because the question is larger than one judge, larger than one book, and larger than one generation.

Was it justice? Was it just us? Or is it just me?

Perhaps the answer can only be found when America is willing to have the conversation.

The history is real. The questions are necessary. The conversation begins now.

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