The March on Washington was a March for Jobs and Freedom. There are still too many people who are unemployed or underemployed in America - they're black, white, Latino, Native American and Asian American.

It is devastating that jail is seen as a rite of passage for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, part of the natural order of things. It is an outrage that there is an attitude that this is normal. This is not normal. We can't shrug our shoulders and say this is just a 'fact of life' in remote Australia.

I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.

Growth is essential and must be sustained. But rapid growth alone cannot address the problems arising out of continuing disparities. Tackling these is not just a matter of social justice but, more importantly, an existential necessity and a moral imperative.

In a nation growing increasingly more diverse, it is imperative that the organizations tasked with keeping us informed reflect the same diversity.

Part of what our problem as blacks in America is that we don't claim that. Partly, you see, because of the linguistic environment in which we live.