I look out upon my own African-American community, and I wince when I hear those stirring words from James Weldon Johnson, "Stony, the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the day when hope unborn had died." And it goes on to say, "We have come, treading our way through the blood of the slaughtered."

A little earlier that verse says, "Have we not come to the place for which our father's sighted?" When I think of the high hopes my own forebears had for this nation and for their own destiny in this nation, I recognize the sore repairs to which the African-American community has come. I am aware of what the Samaritan said, "Whatsoever more thou spendest ..."