Walter Mosley is an African American author who lives in New York, usually writing fiction. However, his essays consider the importance of Black History as relevant to understanding what this country is really all about.
I like the section on the subject of TRUTH. He suggests that we speak the truth on some level in certain aspects each day saying that this could start real change. He didn't say go out and insult people though. And, he didn't say going after the truth and trying to make a difference is painless.
He has some thoughts on ways to spark some needed changes in our work life, our neighborhoods, medical care etc.
He also states and I quote:

"I DON"T BELIEVE THAT WHITE attention to black history should be couched in contrite guilt. Our history is a subject just like any other taught in school. In this study one should learn from the pitfalls and advances. White America (and yellow and red and brown America too) should look at the black experience as a method for all of us to overcome the weight placed on us by those systems that control the realization of our labor. The state of slavery, the aftermath of slavery, the fight for equality---these are the lessons to be learned.......The problem facing Americans today does not originate from racial conflict. The problem is the enslavement of a whole nation to the rather small and insignificant goals of the few who own (or control) almost everything. Black people have been warring against this type of injustice since we were brought here. Now almost everybody is in the same boat.......Black American history, I say again, is American history. There is an echo of JIM CROW in the HMO: people shunted aside, denied access, and allowed to suffer with no real democratic recourse. Downsizing is an excellent way of robbing a hard worker of her accrued wealth. The widening gap between rich and poor is a way of demonizing the later, because poverty is a sin in the richest country in the world. These new systems of injustice wear the trappings of freedom, but they are just as unacceptable as their forebears. The only difference is that under these systems we all suffer. This time everyone is a potential victim."