"Through protest - especially in the 1950s and '60s - we, as a people, touched greatness. Protest, no..." — Shelby Steele

I grew up in a time when there was real segregation. And blacks during the 50s and so forth took a lot of responsibility for their lives because the government didn't.

You can do pretty much anything you want to do in America as a black, including become president. Still, the legacy of our victimization, of our suffering and exclusion from the mainstream of American life, has left its mark.

Blacks have experienced a history of victimization in America, beginning obviously in slavery and then another 100 years of segregation. I grew up in segregation. I know very well what it was about and all of the difficulties it placed on black life, and how we were truly held down before the civil-rights movement.

Thomas Sowell, among many others, has articulated the power of individual responsibility as an antidote to black poverty for over 40 years. Black thinkers as far back as Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington have done the same.