"You do not take a person, who for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, `You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair"(Jost 9).

These are the words of President Lyndon B. Johnson at a commencement at the historically African American Howard University. He spoke of his distress with the way Blacks have been treated since they were shipped here from Africa. After all of the atrocities of the enslavement of the African Americans, such as branding and beatings, they still had to live with such discriminatory policies as the Jim Crow Laws, which segregated such places as theaters, schools, and all public transportation ("Jim Crow Laws"). The underrepresented minorities need to be able to wield power in society. Affirmative Action...