When President William Clinton called for a national dialogue on race relations during a June 15, 1997 Commencement address at the University of California, San Diego, James S. Wright, a fiercely patriotic black American, was well underway in responding with the near-completion of American Apartheid, his 160-page book. Its purpose is to jump-start the stalled vehicles that drove Americans to the battleground where the war for racial equality was fought in this country. For the past 15 years or so, the Civil Rights Movement, which was very aggressive in the 1960's and the 1970's, has slowed to a crawl. The fight for racial equality is far from over. Hopefully, this book will inspire a rebirth of the Civil Rights Movement and salute our President for the sensitivity he continues to show for one of the great unfinished tasks, the racial healing of America on our national agenda.

It is my opinion, aside from the treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust, the most tragic case of man's inhumanity to man is the treatment of the Native-American people in the United States. The Native Americans were also the first American victims of apartheid. Third on my list would be the enslavement of my ancestors, the African Americans, by white Americans.

. . . The enslavement of Africans in America was not the white man's first attempt at slavery. Long before the black man was brought to America, the white man made an attempt to make the red man his slave; however, the free spirit of the Native Americans would never allow them to be slaves. When the white man attempted to put the Native Americans in bondage, they simply died. Without their freedom, the Native Americans lost the will to live. This will give you some idea of why they fought so hard to keep their land and their freedom in this country.