"What does it mean to be an American? African American history illuminates the United States' core paradoxes, inviting profound questions about what it means to be an American, a citizen, and a human being. This Very Short Introduction narrates the creation of racialized chattel slavery, the dismantling of that system during the Civil War, and the civil rights disputes that have erupted in the years since Emancipation, including the Black Lives Matter movement. Author Jonathan Scott Holloway illustrates American citizens' willingness to realize the ideal articulated in America's founding document, namely, that all people were created equal"--