One hundred years after Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Declaration Martin Luther King stated that it represented a Promissory Note that guaranteed that "all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." He further stated that "America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked Insufficient funds."

That check was destined to "bounce" from the day it was written. The Emancipation Proclamation and the Reconstruction Amendments, so grudgingly enacted, as well as the violence perpetrated against all African Americans throughout the Union after the war and to this day are a testament to the purposeful denial of the basic Civil Rights of black citizens.

The debt remains unpaid. Until the majority of Americans recognize that debt and acknowledge the need to repay that debt in some form or another there will be no justice for black citizens. And without justice there can be no lasting peace in American society.