this victim narrative about blacks in the united states. that the only role they played was a victim to white majority oppression. when i teach my course on black american politics i always stress to my students when we talked about king and the civil rights movement in 50's and 60's we need to call it the modern civil rights movements because blacks from before the revolution were pressing, prudently, pressing foretheir rights. m american history could be one long civil rights, emancipation proclamation and it's going on now, it's people trying to grab other's rights. that never changes, that's human nature, that's human history. if i asked the audience when did america have its first african-american judge, what year would you say? anybody? take a guess.