Recently, at a TEDxTucson event, documentarian Frances Causey gave a talk on her family's story. That story informed her film, The Long Shadow. Causey is a daughter of the South. Her ancestors owned slaves. She wants to do her part to make it right.
As of this moment, this talk, in my opinion, is the most important message that has emerged from the non-profit TED.
To acquire additional insight on the culture of racism, which has not been eliminated from our country, I recommend reading Brenda Wineapple's book, The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation.
Wineapple vividly describes the history of Reconstruction after the Civil War, and Andrew Johnson's divisive role therein. In addition, becoming familiar with--what Causey describes as that the South was defeated militarily but not politically--sheds important light on how the (usually not very united) United States can survive the current Constitutional crises we face. We can emerge closer to a more perfect union than we've been before.
But not without a renaissance of citizens owning and exercising their citizenship to rebuild the institutions that have kept us together over the last 230+ years.
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