different voices on martin luther king's legacy in the state of race relations in the u.s. today now with us in the studio still sebastian europe's a professor of american history here in berlin we just heard some rather pessimistic statements there and it's sessoms from african-americans yet it was only ten years ago that the united states elected its first black president what's gone wrong in recent years. those are troubling comments we just heard but i think as a historian i'm professionally obliged to say that's not new this kind of criticism and the implicit and explicit race is and has been part of american political rhetoric even after the civil rights movement if you think about it richard nixon or ronald reagan. the dog whistle in politics but you're absolutely right ten years ago when barack obama was elected president there was