Summary

Wilkerson began the essay by saying that most people may believe that the struggle for racial equality ended in the 1960s when civil rights leaders worked for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, recent events, including the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, indicated that the work of the Civil Rights Movement is not over. She explained that the movement set a high bar for how people of color were treated, and many Americans believed they would not fall beneath that bar. African-American history is filled with great achievements from the black senators during the Reconstruction era to the election of President Barack Obama. Each period of great accomplishment was followed by a strong backlash, thus restarting the cycle.

Then, Wilkerson introduces the concept of Nadir. The last backlash against black advancement was so devastating historians now...