300 year head start

t seems that there has been more American political sentiment in favor of doing something TO the Negro, than in regard to doing something FOR the Negro, as was hoped by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., over 50 years ago in his classic book, WHY WE CAN'T WAIT (1963), wherein he he wrote: "It is impossible to create a formula for the future that does not take into account that our society has been doing something 'against' the Negro for hundreds of years. How can he be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something special 'for' him now to balance the equation and equip him to compete on a just and equal basis? "Whenever this issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man is entered at the starting line of a race three hundred years after another man, the first would have to perform some impossible feat in order to catch up with his fellow runner." P. 165, "The Days to Come."