Lest it be forgotten, every African American woman, man and child, whether a single mother struggling in desperate poverty, one of the six billionaires or a child newly birthed in a humble abode, is testament to the indomitable nature of the human spirit. Descended from ancestors who were enslaved simply because of their race, beaten into submission and forced to toil in the fields as chattel to enrich others, bought and sold as commodity, families often split up for the sale, the womenfolk raped or made into sex toys, kept illiterate, they still rise, as Maya Angelou proudly proclaimed. They have done it without rancor, their only demand being to be free of enduring systemic racism in the country they built while in shackles. Their achievement should be celebrated and be the inspiration to aid them on a journey still to be completed.

But some Americans view that past not as a cause for celebration but one for grievance — yes, they have grievance — and the end of the war which liberated the Africans as a “Lost Cause,” a call to arms until they are finally victorious. They are a minority but wield sufficient power to attempt to halt the progress in that journey towards the truth and reconciliation which South Africa achieved after apartheid ended.

They are using state power to try to erase the history of slavery, the story of a people in subjugation and their immeasurable contribution to the United States, by censoring books and criminalizing teaching of that past. Emboldened by allies now comprising the majority on the tribunal who interpret the nation’s founding document not as a blueprint for making the union less imperfect but a decree chiseled in stone to preserve an oppressive status quo more than 230 years old, they proudly see themselves as killers of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.

And so America is engaged now, as it was in the 1960s – nearly 100 years after slavery ended – in another war for its soul. And African Americans seem finally ready for that war.

Several hundred protesters marched in Tallahassee, the Florida capital, and near the office of Governor Ronald Dion DeSantis, the general in this war, on February 15. They carried signs: “Black history is American history,” “The new racism is denying that racism exists.” They finally understood what is at stake after DeSantis rejected an Advanced Placement African American history course as “without educational value.” DeSantis had already signed laws limiting what can be taught in schools and universities, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion training.

That was only the tip of the iceberg.

The Washington Post pointed to “his formation of an election police force, which drew national scrutiny after many of those arrested noted that the state had approved their voter registration. Most the 20 people it arrested last year, in highly publicized cases, were Black. They point to his redistricting plan — so aggressive that Republican legislative leaders resisted it — which eliminated two districts drawn to give Black residents an opportunity to elect a Black representative. That redrawing gave the GOP four additional seats in Congress, helping the party retake the House,” DeSantis and his cadre of yes-people gleefully engaged in academic censorship are most recently exploring the possibility that the state should adopt the Classic Learning Test (CLT) with its focus on the “great classical and Christian tradition” and the “centrality of the Western tradition,” The Miami Herald reported. But not CRT and its emphasis on American civilization. Earlier this week, the governor blamed “wokeness” for crime in a speech in New York – fully aware of the reference to African Americans, with whom “woke” is most associated.

The February 15 protesters included some who had demonstrated for civil rights and racial equity in Florida before DeSantis was born and now found themselves back on the march 60 years later. Ben Frazier, 72, who founded the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, was among them. He was jailed overnight last December after refusing to yield the podium at a Jacksonville City Council meeting, declaring, as he was dragged away, “Remove Confederate monuments.” DeSantis responded to such calls by signing a law whose provisions include criminalizing any effort to remove the emblems glorifying European American supremacy. Frazier’s organization offered $50 gas cards to help Duval County residents make the 169-mile drive to Tallahassee for the rally, The Post said. He accused DeSantis, of “trying to turn back the hands of time in terms of the achievements of the civil rights movement.”

The Rev. Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr., president of the National Action Network (NAN), which led the demonstration, was there. He accused DeSantis of promoting “racist” policies by trying to decide how “people’s history should be done.” If the governor decides to seek the presidency next year, Sharpton said, he “will not have the domain he has here in Florida” but will face “some rough stuff. … I just gave him a sparring session today.” The Rev. William J. Barber II placed the protest in national perspective in an interview with The Post prior to the march. He said the way to take on DeSantis is by, in the words of The Post, “linking the struggles of Black Floridians to those facing a cross-section of Americans.”

But there is already great urgency to act now. Since September 2020, 183 local, state and federal government agencies “have introduced 521 bills, resolutions, executive orders, opinion letters, statements, and other measures” attacking critical race theory – the catchall phrase — according to the University of California School of Law’s CRT Forward tracking program.

Those who enlist in this new war for America’s soul will, as happened in the 1960s, have to walk a hard road but, again, they will not be alone. The Rev. Kim Buchanan of the United Church of Tallahassee, a European American, told the marchers, “I am descended from enslavers,” that “learning that history was hard. But If I had not learned about that history, it might have left me, yes, asleep.”

Also, CNN reported Monday that some conservatives, including donors, “have become skeptical of how liberally” DeSantis “is using government power to impose his will … and there is a growing concern that” he “has overstepped in his fight against ‘wokeness’ as he seeks to shore up conservative support ahead of a highly anticipated 2024 campaign for president.”

And 1,000 college professors, including from the University of Miami, the University of Florida, and Florida State University, have denounced the College Board for what they see as its surrender to DeSantis’ rejection of its AP African American course, The Miami Herald reported.

“African American Studies is the study of the persistence of anti-Blackness and the connections between historical and contemporary efforts to resist structural racism,” the professors wrote to College Board CEO David Coleman. “It is an interdisciplinary engagement with the ways in which people of African descent remade and re-envisioned the world through ideas, art, politics and social movements despite the enduring character of white supremacy.”

Surely, governments must have something better to do than pursue an Afrophobic agenda against the nation’s 40 million African Americans with today’s version of ethnic cleansing which asserts that American exceptionalism means except African Americans.