When several years ago Barack Obama announced that he would run for the presidency, many in and out of the United States thought that the white dominated country was not yet prepared to elect a black president. They were soon proved wrong. Obama was elected and reelected as a symbol of collective aspiration that the question of color has nothing to do with the high office of a country.

People of African descent felt relieved at his victory and many of them thought that Obama being elected president was a vindication of the "dream" of famous black right-activist Martin Luther King. This was true to some extent. But it is also true that the success story of Obama and many others like him has not addressed the question of race and prejudices which apparently still run deep in American society. Year after year, we come across incidents and stories that show that hundreds and thousands of African-Americans still need to go a long way to get the respect which we feel naturally towards a community of people.

The latest issue which has brought the issue of color in the United States under sharp focus is two back-to-back jury decisions when the grand jury refused to charge white police officers for killing of African-American men. In the first verdict, the jury refused to indict policemen Darren Wilson who had fatally shot Michael Brown.

An 18-year old unarmed Brown was killed shot six times by Wilson on August 9 in Ferguson, Missouri, a town of over 21,000 people, the majority of them black. Nobody has a definite answer to why the policeman shot six bullets, two at the head of the victim. The incident sparked riots and protests by the people, forcing State Governor Jay Nixon to declare an emergency. He later imposed night curfews and also called the paramilitary National Guards to deal with the angry people.

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