Race has been looked at differently by everyone in society since society existed. There never was true equality between human beings because society has created a place where different is bad. But each time period throughout the world has brought change towards equality. For example, even the most important people in creating this country had racist thoughts, ideas, or owned slaves themselves. Benjamin Franklin was quoted for saying "Why increase the Sons of Africa, by planting them in America, where we have so fair and opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white or red?"(Gould 1751: 32) This came out of the mouth of a person who signed are constitution witch are country was founded on.
However, Benjamin Franklin was not the only famous person to have had racist thoughts and spoke openly about them. One of are biggest freedom fighters in our history, Abraham Lincoln, had thoughts that freedom should be granted to people of color. But at the same time he thought that people of color shouldn"t have biological equality. In the Douglas debates he was quoted saying "there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."(Gould 1858: 35) Its not that Lincoln thought blacks where evil or should be treated like animals. Lincoln thought that there was still a difference between a person of color and white Caucasians. .
People of color weren"t the only people in past history to live through slavery or persecution. In fact the people who lived in America first were treated like slaves and savages. These people were the Indians. Starting in the early 1500's immigrants and travelers from Spain sailed to America to claim the land. What they found when they got there were the natives they called Indians. The Indians welcomed the new guests to the country and along with trading showed the Spaniards the waterways and terrain.