Driving under the influence has been illegal since 1910. New York was the first state to pass such laws, and California was soon to follow. According to U.S. statistics, there are approximately 32 fatalities per day due to drunk-driving accidents, with 920 resulting injuries.

In August of 1619, a ship named the White Lion docked at a port in Point Comfort (currenttly Hampton), Virginia, carrying a cargo of 20-30 human beings originating from Angola on the west coast of Africa. It was the first arrival of human cargo to what was deemed the “New World.” 

They had been captured during Portuguese military conflicts and forced to march 100-200 miles to the coast, where they were sold and made to board the San Juan Bautista along with over 300 other unwilling passengers. Their initial destination was the Spanish colony of Vera Cruz on the coast of Mexico, but prior to the completion of their journey, the ship was attacked by two intercepting vessels, redirecting 50-60 of its victimized passengers to the Virginia colonies.

Several days later, a second ship, named the Treasurer, is believed to have delivered 7-9 enslaved Africans; the rest were reported to have been shipped to the island of Bermuda. This began America’s involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade. 

Over the course of 3 and a half centuries, over 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and displaced from their families and homelands to enrich an unfamiliar and distant land, which has become the world’s superpower. 

Packed like sardines in the holds of these slave ships, it is estimated that 2 million African people perished during the journey. By the time of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, 3.95 million enslaved Africans and their descendants occupied the United States, having built America’s wealth with their blood, sweat, and tears.

America was given the opportunity to change its direction and make a right turn by issuing human rights to the formerly enslaved, issuing 40 acres of land for a new start, granting official citizenship, and extending human and civil rights in a show of repentance with the Reconstruction era. Instead, it only took 12 years to make another left turn and run off the road, and rescind those promises, replacing them with Jim Crow laws and a concerted effort to demonize the images of Black people. 

Although the 13th (ending chattel slavery), 14th (giving Black people the right to vote), and 15th (granting citizenship) Amendments were put into place, they held no power for implementation until the signing of Civil Rights legislation in 1965. Once again, America had taken a left turn and swerved away from a straight path.  

Formed in 1894 by female relatives of Confederate soldiers, The United Daughters of the Confederacy set out, among other objectives, to misrepresent this history and invest in the mass production of cheaply made statues of Confederate soldiers to proliferate America’s landscape, and plant revisionist history into the educational systems’ school curriculum, capturing the minds of vulnerable children.    

We took a right turn during Reconstruction (1865-1877), and approximately 2,000 African Americans held political office. Still, America took a left turn and restricted the voting rights of African Americans and often violently pulled many of these officials from their positions. 

We took a right turn when African Americans established their own businesses and towns, becoming self-sufficient with their own “Black Wall Streets.” However, it wouldn’t be long before America took another left turn, driving into ditches along the way with the establishment of white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and other homegrown terrorist organizations to target Black Americans and their allies. Over 4,400 Black men, women, and children were hanged from trees like Christmas ornaments in an effort to keep Blacks “in their place.”    

Their Black towns were burned and bombed into obliteration, and their inhabitants displaced or murdered in cold blood with no recompense.  

We made a right turn and elected our first Black president, and many thought that finally this evil was all behind us and we could finally begin to move in a sober fashion and reach our destination of diversity, equity, and inclusion for all Americans. 

However, we received a president insisting upon going back to an era of left turns and reckless driving, and throwing the vehicle in reverse.       

Before we all become a statistic, it’s time we band together and repossess the keys, as it has become painfully obvious that the driver is severely intoxicated and headed off a cliff.