An old Chinese Proverb observes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. My grandfather would have said, “You can eat an elephant: just one bite at a time”. Perhaps both are true when discussing America’s progression from slavery to the 1st black president. This journey has taken thousands of steps – some quite noteworthy (ex., Brown v. the Board of Education [1]), moved us forward by leaps and bounds – multiple steps at a time. Others, although relatively unknown (ex., The United States v. Cruikshank [2]) set us back – steps in the wrong direction. The latter was recently brought to my attention through a report in the March 28, 1876 issue of The New York Times [3] which reported the Supreme Court’s decision in this case which is described by Wikipedia as: “a major blow to Federal efforts to protect the civil rights of African Americans”. Perhaps “2 steps forward, one step back” better describes this journey of a thousand steps – the first which began with the declaration: “We the People”. Thankfully, what started as a crawl, at some point, broke into a sprint. However, the trek continues.