Slavery had a powerful impact on the development of the USA. Sooner or later a nation founded on the principle of liberty was bound to argue over slavery. As you will discover, it took a major war to finally end slavery. But even after slavery was abolished and the former slaves were freed, black people did not gain equal rights or opportunities. Many white people continue to look down on them and to discriminate against them. The fact that they are black makes them easily identifiable. Today many black Americans are very much aware of how black people came to be in America in the first place. They know of the suffering and struggles of members of their families during the past three hundred years. Perhaps some of them feel bitter at the past and sometimes present treatment of black people in the USA. Often the experience of black people has been that they have been treated in their own country as if they were not Americans at all.

Nigel Smith: Black peoples of the Americas; Oxford University Press, 1992/2000, page 7