I have always thought that the greatest tragedy/evil of slavery in America is how it made blacks feel about themselves.  In the late '50s, early '60s, when I was a kid, I picked up the vibe that “light-skinned” blacks were better than us dark-complexioned blacks.  When I was outside playing with my four younger siblings, Mom would yell, “Get in here out of that sun, y'all are gettin' too black!”  I remember distinctly thinking, “What is wrong with getting blacker?” As I was her eldest, mom shared things with me. She told me about the heartbreak she felt as a thin, shapely young woman, dressed in her prettiest outfit, applying for a job for which she was well-qualified: a sales clerk at a downtown Baltimore department store.  Mom said because she was dark-skinned, they automatically wanted to put her back in the kitchen.  I could tell that that hurt her deeply. In 1968, James Brown wrote and...(Read Full Article)