Broken Promises

Leah Wright Rigueur calls America a failed state. As a polity, she says, the United States has failed black people, falling short of its promises of equality and justice. This summer's protests are a dramatic diagnostic of that failure — the latest in a long history of wake-up calls. But this is also, perhaps, a transformative moment, a sign of hope. Rigueur, a Harvard historian and public policy expert, discusses the importance of heeding black protest, black politics, and black demands for reparations.