“Slavery was a long time ago, so why can’t Black people just get over it?” That familiar refrain often comes from the same people who proudly light fireworks every Fourth of July to honor America’s independence from Britain, an event that occurred nearly 250 years ago. We are comfortable remembering events that make us feel proud, but we prefer to forget the history that challenges our national self-image.
Top Three Takeaways from the Article:
The long-term effects of slavery and systemic racism are visible today in the massive racial wealth gap and persistent economic inequality faced by African Americans.
Black communities that achieved prosperity, such as Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street,” were often destroyed by white supremacist violence, leaving lasting economic and social scars.
Structural racism was embedded in the U.S. Constitution through compromises like the Three-Fifths Clause and the Electoral College, and its legacy still shapes American politics and society.
The truth is, the past never really goes away. It lingers in our systems, our institutions, and our economy. Slavery and the racism that justified it are not ancient relics; they are living legacies with measurable effects on African-American communities today.
Generational Wealth and Inequality
One of the clearest long-term effects of slavery is the racial wealth gap. Enslaved people were denied wages, property ownership, and education for centuries, leaving their descendants without the foundation of generational wealth that white families accumulated. Even after emancipation, Jim Crow laws, redlining, and discriminatory lending practices ensured that African Americans remained locked out of the opportunities available to whites.
Today, the median white family holds 15 times the wealth of the median African-American family. Latino families hold 11 to 12 times the wealth. This is not a coincidence, it’s the predictable result of who had access to resources and who was deliberately denied them.
Violence Against Black Prosperity
Even when African Americans managed to build thriving communities despite systemic barriers, white supremacist violence often destroyed them. The most infamous example is the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a prosperous Black neighborhood known as “Black Wall Street” was burned to the ground by a white mob, leaving hundreds dead and thousands displaced.
Tulsa was not an isolated case. From Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898 to Rosewood, Florida in 1923, African-American communities were systematically targeted, erased, and stripped of wealth through racist violence. These events left lasting scars, not only in the form of lost lives and property but also in the psychological trauma of knowing that Black success itself could provoke deadly backlash.
Constitutional Roots of Inequality
The U.S. Constitution itself reflects compromises with slavery that still shape politics today. The Three-Fifths Compromise allowed slaveholding states to count enslaved people toward representation despite denying them any rights. This inflated the political power of slave states and entrenched white supremacy at the nation’s founding.
The Electoral College was also born out of slavery. Slaveholding states feared that direct democracy would diminish their influence, since much of their population was disenfranchised. By inflating their representation through the enslaved population, the Electoral College preserved its dominance. That system still exists today, and without it, Donald Trump would not have become president.
Why the Past Still Matters
Slavery, Jim Crow, racist violence, and systemic exclusion are not simply chapters in history books. They are the foundation of America’s racial disparities in wealth, housing, healthcare, education, and political representation. When people dismiss slavery as irrelevant to today, they ignore centuries of cumulative disadvantage intentionally inflicted on African Americans.
To say “just get over it” is to misunderstand how deeply the past is woven into the present. If America can celebrate Independence Day every year, it can certainly acknowledge how slavery and white supremacy still shape the nation—and take responsibility for addressing their ongoing consequences.