story that whites have never given up ground towards equality without a fight or a struggle. White society has shown that it lacks the courage and imagination to break this impasse by moving constructively, says Young. It is up to the black community to show the way (408-9). What is it going to take? It took a bloody and terrible Civil War, a devastation that threatened to destroy America, for whites to concede abolition. And what would have happened then, if whites did not fight amongst themselves over the issue of slavery and invariably the condition of the Negro? Perhaps the Negro would have risen up and taken freedom himself; and oh how great the bloodshed might have been! One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, it took a movement full of violent rage and rhetoric, once again threatening to destroy the very fiber that holds the republic together, to force concessions mandating integration and affirmative action. One can only speculate where the Civil Rights Movement would have led had not many of the black leaders been killed off, had not white leaders made their timely, political concessions. Black leader after black leader has proclaimed that they will not stop until equality is achieved, that the black race will not settle for anything less than realizing their just human rights. The work is not yet done. The battle is not yet won. In Race Matters, Cornell West admits: (1) Black rage is still present; (2) There is a freedom struggle; and (3) If not channeled, this rage may destroy America. He writes, Only if we are as willing as Malcolm X to grow and confront the new challenges posed by the black rage of our day will we take the black freedom struggle to a new and higher level. The future of this country may depend on it (151). Speculating that time may be running out, Young proclaims, And for America, this may be the last opportunity she has to deal with leaders responsible to their people, before t...
