Yet within this tapestry of misery and sadness a single, dark thread commanded our attention and inflamed emotions like no other. A smart phone video lasting less than nine minutes generated a global response that monopolized both mainstream and social media throughout most of the year.

The death of George Floyd was shocking not because it was such a unique and unprecedented event. It was shocking because it was such a common and unremarkable event. The callous disregard for Mr. Floyd's condition as the life was squeezed out of him was horrible to watch. But upon reviewing any number of similar incidents over many decades it clearly was not that exceptional.

The truth of the matter is that, for too many people, the life of a black person has not been considered to be of much value for the last 135 years. Before the passing of the 13th amendment a slave had value. Once that amendment was ratified by the State of Georgia in December 1865 a free Black person was literally worthless.

The transition from chattel slave to fully emancipated and valued citizen has been tortuous and remains incomplete. It was opposed initially by bloody conflict on the battlefields, and then by torch-bearing terrorists hiding behind white hoods. Since the end of the Reconstruction Era, a seemingly endless series of legal measures have attempted to suppress the participation of Black Americans in the political institutions that govern their lives. On the economic front, vile practices such as red-lining Black neighbourhoods to identify them as being unsuitable for government mortgage support have seriously reduced the ability of Black families to accumulate wealth over multiple generations.

The grievances voiced by the "Black Lives Matter" movement are irrefutable. And yet many have questioned the elevation of the plight of African Americans above other groups suffering discrimination and enduring police violence. They argue that "All Lives Matter" would be a more inclusive and worthy goal to strive for.

Although other visible minorities and disadvantaged groups suffer from discrimination and prejudice their situation is not comparable. The reality faced by African Americans today is the direct result of the historical legacy of a slave economy that generated enormous wealth for white Americans for more than two hundred years. That economic engine of growth was needed as much after the Civil War as before, so much so that despite having sacrificed the lives of more than 300,000 of its citizens the North allowed the Southern States to effectively re-impose slavery in different forms during the Reconstruction era.

No voice was ever raised more eloquently in protest of this "shameful condition" than that of Doctor Martin Luther King Junior in 1963. His "I have a Dream" speech, delivered in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, imagined an America very different than the one he was living in. He dreamed of a time when his own children would live in "a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character".

Many people embrace the inspirational images of that dream. What is often forgotten is that the first twelve minutes of the speech represented a brutal indictment of the failed promise of the Emancipation Proclamation. In assessing the condition of African Americans five score years after Lincoln's most famous political act Dr. King's words were neither diplomatic nor subtle.

"One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land."

In answer to the rhetorical question "what do African Americans want" Dr. King touched on issues that were sadly still relevant in 2020.

"We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality."

"We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote."

Those words were spoken more than 57 years ago. Since that time has the American nation made good on the "promissory note" that was embodied in the Emancipation Proclamation? Clearly it has not.

When trying to understand the origins of the American Slave economy the first question that comes to mind is "why did it happen at all?". The concept of capturing people from African villages and hauling them across two thousand miles of Atlantic Ocean to work on plantations in America would not seem to be the most logical way to solve an agricultural labour shortage. The thirteen colonies were populated mostly by British emigrants and slavery was not common in Britain. Although there were various forms of indentured servitude in Britain there were no land owners whose fortunes had been built on the backs of slave labour.

Sadly, and ironically the seeds of the American Slave Economy were sown in the slave markets of North Africa. Active since Roman times, these markets increasingly were fed by pirates that sailed from the ports of the Barbary Coast towards the end of the 14th Century. They delivered into enslavement the crews of captured European ships and the inhabitants of coastal villages in Italy, Spain, and Portugal which they raided with impunity.