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After over 300 years of struggle against the most oppressive and cruel system of chattel slavery, waged by the slaves themselves with a predominantly white abolitionist movement, slavery was overthrown; the struggle succeeded.
It was the struggle of the slaves themselves – their resistance to this cruelty – that forced onto the center stage the great debate over whether this nation would realize the democracy and freedoms contained in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution or remain a nation on the road to self destruction.
It took the Civil War (still the bloodiest war in our history) to end slavery and establish the United States of America. That’s how important the black question was.
The African-American people’s struggle for freedom was then – and remains today – central in the fight for democracy and progress.
From the struggles against slavery to today’s struggle against structural racism and for democracy for all, the African-American people continue to play a strategic role in the fight for progress.
Because U.S. racism and capitalism are solidly linked, the fight against racism and for equality has always also had great revolutionary potential.