Interesting article and even more interesting the responses to the article. I do find it hard to understand how a nation like America was founded with a conscience and what is the definition of great? The ramifications of slavery are not solely within America but the lasting effects from the motherland where soldiers, teachers, philosophers, industrialists, students and so on -- men, women and children were taken from Africa. It's as though slavery started with an empty vessel of a human - it did not and a necessary evil would be the equivalent of simply doing the same thing today. How would that look?