Recent means within 2 lifetimes (in other words, possibly within the lifetime of someone's great grandparents), and only one if you count the systems of indentu

Recent means within 2 lifetimes (in other words, possibly within the lifetime of someone's great grandparents), and only one if you count the systems of indentured servitude that existed throughout the United States in the aftermath of the civil war[1] -- not to mention the modern institution prison labor which is the legacy of these very systems. Black people weren't "free" in the sense of "empowered to thrive" -- they were "free" in the sense that "slavery on paper is illegal (except where states and local laws allow it under a different name), but you are still legally second class citizens, will possibly very quickly find yourself subject to extreme violence, imprisonment, death, or all of the above if any white stranger doesn't like the way you're looking at them, and you'll have access to subpar everything -- from medical care, to education, to service at a restaurant" And it is recent relative to the scale of the trauma it wrought -- we're talking an entire population of people subject to extreme brutality and repression. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unfree_labor_in_the_United_States#Peonage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unfree_labor_in_the...