They didn't just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed." If we are to heal the racial divide, we need a new presidential-level commission that considers these overlapping problems of poverty, inequality, gun violence, public mental health, mass incarceration, hyperpolicing and militarization. The bulk of mass incarceration, however, occurred at the state level, where state legislators and governors passed their own tough-on-crime measures. Building on Nixon's political rhetoric, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton adopted sweeping federal policies that accelerated militarized policing and mass incarceration. "Centuries of racial discrimination -- of slavery and subjugation and Jim Crow -- they didn't simply vanish with the end of lawful segregation.

Source: CNN July 22, 2016 00:56 UTC