This past Thursday millions of Americans paused to give thanks for the multitude of blessings in our lives.  As we gathered around our dinner tables amidst the turkey, stuffing, and sweet potato pie, I hope that we did not forget that the annual ritual of appreciation is about more than a feast or the harvest, or even simply reconnecting with family.  From the earliest recorded Thanksgiving celebrations in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia and in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Thanksgiving has always been about the future - a celebration that boldly embraced hope, generations to come, and optimism for tomorrow.

As we move into this holiday season, it is the perfect time to celebrate our children.  One of my favorite sayings is that while children are less than 50% of our present population, they are certainly 100% of our future.  History has shown us time and again that social movements can rise or fall on the shoulders of youth.  An inspired child who dares to dream and even more daringly chooses to believe in that dream can, and will, change the world.  Yet children are likely the most overlooked, undervalued of all citizens in our society.

The Covenant with Black America inspired a movement.  When The Jamestown Project was asked to help move The Covenant goals into action, I was determined to ensure that we officially extend the "call to action" to children.  We must keep our arms as open to children as their hearts and minds are open to love.  We must embrace them as partners, nurture their souls, and inspire them to action, but also remain willing to learn from their idealism and commitment to simple truths.

I wrote I Dream for You a World: A Covenant for Our Children because I am inspired by my daughter's simple questions that uncover truths that do not have to be: "Why do healthy foods have to cost so much?" "Why did the city allow lead into our water fountains at school?" and "Why do we keep so many Black people in jail?"  I wanted to give her the guidance, inspiration and the tools to do her part, even at her young age, to create her own answers and to erase the ugly truths that her questions reveal.

Charisse Carney-Nunes is the author of I Dream for You a World: A Covenant for Our Children.  She is a senior officer at The Jamestown Project, an action-oriented think tank focused on democracy that will be releasing a curriculum for child civic engagement in 2008 based on the children's covenant.

The African-American community is afflicted with twin political evils: One party that refuses to compete for its vote and the other that takes its vote for granted.  The result is that real concerns of the African-American community are routinely ignored by both.

Ironically, the Republicans, who claim to be the party of "family values," will miss an opportunity to dialogue with Black America on an issue that concerns us all - the state of our families.

As the great civil rights pioneer and matriarch, Dr. Dorothy I. Height, reminds us, "we have survived because of family."  That said, the African-American community must admit something to ourselves: our families today are not as strong as they could or should be.  They are not as strong as our children need them to be.

The Covenant with Black America Movement has embraced the value of a strong family as a core and essential component to the Black communities strength and survival.

In fact, if one looks at each principle in The Covenant with Black America, one finds that the family is the common denominator.

The responsibility for fostering and protecting healthy familial bonds is the most important a community can assume.  Education is crucial, but the family is the first school, and family members are the first teachers.

Economic well-being is essential, but strong families cultivate the habits that make reliable workers, imaginative entrepreneurs, passionate labor leaders, and responsible employers. 

Political involvement is indispensable, but caring families nurture the integrity and selflessness that distinguish engaged citizens and effective leaders. 

For these reasons, any serious effort to improve the conditions of life in the Black community must confront the challenges facing the family. 

The uncomfortable truth is - as citizens of this great country, we are failing our children, our families, and hence our democratic ideals.

In a prolific commentary several years ago, Condoleeza Rice said, "The success of democracy depends on public character and private virtue.  For democracy to thrive, free citizens must work every day to strengthen their families, to care for their neighbors, and to support their communities." 

We need the help of our fellow Americans to move beyond politics and put the issue of families at the top of the national agenda and we need government policies that combine bold initiatives to address persistent economic inequalities with support for healthy, safe, nurturing relationships, marriages, and families. And so we ask each of the candidates, Democratic and Republican alike, to answer a simple question: As President, what concrete steps would you take to play a role in strengthening Black families?

It's true the French Quarter is back. The unemployment rate is down. Student test scores are rebounding. Progress is blossoming all over.

The people of New Orleans have banded together - in some ways, coming farther, faster than many Americans thought possible.

But alongside that progress is the real risk that we are reinventing the past- recreating a city rife with the same racial and economic inequalities that were laid bare on the world's front pages two years ago.

The federal government promised to turn this tragedy into an opportunity to address the pernicious history of racial and economic injustice in the Crescent City. Instead, that "legacy of inequality" is coming back in full force. We are in danger of rebuilding a divided city.

Much of the progress we have seen in New Orleans has been made by those who had resources before the storm - homeowners, business people, private schools.

For those without resources - renters, low-wage workers, public school students - the rebuilding effort has been far slower and more grueling.

For these folks, just getting home has been a challenge. More than 40,000 New Orleans families are still displaced outside of Louisiana - and though many of those families want to return home, high rents and poor job prospects have made that step impossible.

This is unacceptable - and it does not hold true to our American values. We must recommit our nation to giving New Orleans residents the help they need to create a city economically, educationally and socially vibrant.

The people of New Orleans are doing all they can to reclaim their city. But the scale of the disaster is so immense that a true recovery is not possible without the resources, expertise and leadership of the federal government.

New Orleanians need safe, affordable homes to live in, good schools to educate their children and well-paying jobs to support their families.

Two years ago, in ways big and small, Americans showed that they cared about the people of New Orleans. Only leadership from the highest levels of power can combat the drastic toll Katrina took on New Orleans.

The people of New Orleans are fighting to save their city. Will America give them the help they need?

Angela Glover Blackwell is founder and chief executive officer of PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing economic and social equity by Lifting Up What Works.®  For more information on the PolicyLink campaign in New Orleans, check out HopeNeedsHelp.org.

The Education Covenant calls for the establishment of a system where all children have the opportunity to achieve to their full potential. This June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision about the constitutionality of policies in Seattle and Louisville that promote racial integration in schools, dealing a heavy blow to the struggle to make the Education Covenant a reality.  In a split decision, the Court struck down these school districts' plans on the grounds that they violated some students' right to equal protection under the 14^th amendment.  However, it left open the possibility that school districts can use some race-conscious measures to combat racial segregation.  A majority of Justices affirmed that achieving racial diversity and avoiding racial isolation in schools are compelling state interests.         

This ruling removed from educators and law makers a successful tool for combating the racial segregation that is a ubiquitous feature of our nation's public schools.  Its immediate effect will be to force hundreds of communities back to the drawing board as they try to refine their voluntary school desegregation plans in light of the new rulings.  It may scare off other school districts from undertaking new plans designed to ameliorate racial segregation in our public schools.  As Justice Breyer wrote in his lengthy and blistering dissent, this decision "upsets settled expectations, creates legal uncertainty, and threatens to produce considerable further litigation, aggravating race-related conflict." 

We all know our country's tortured history with race and schooling. Less well known are many communities' small, quiet, and yet largely successful efforts to counteract the racial segregation that characterizes so many public schools. The job of our elected officials now is to preserve these voluntary school desegregation programs that have developed over the years in so many of our cities and towns. Law makers and educators may need to revise them accordingly. Our elected leadership should strive to make clear that there is no need to rush and abandon plans that have been successful for years. As Charles Hamilton Houston, the legendary African American litigator who trained many of the lawyers who won the unanimous Brown case in 1954, once said, "This fight for equality of educational opportunity [was] not an isolated struggle. All our struggles must tie in together and support one another ... We must remain on the alert and push the struggle farther with all our might."

Charles Ogletree is a professor of law at Harvard Law School.  He is the founder and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, also at Harvard. His complete bio may be viewed at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ogletree.html.

While the history and politics of race and ethnicity in France is very different from the United States, I am struck by the comparisons that are made in relationship to them. Issues such as racism, discrimination, affirmative action, immigration, crime and security, programs for the "disadvantaged" are many of the issues that have been on the agenda during the presidential debates and are now the focus of discussion for plans of action by the newly installed government.

Right-wing president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy, promised "diversity" and an ouverture in his government and appears to be destabilizing the socialist party-which is the largest left-wing sector of the opposition-by recruiting some top names of the party. Moreover, the choices of Sarkozy that have caused much attention come from Africa-three women, Algerian-Moroccan Rachida Dati, Algerian Fadela Amara, and Senegalese Rama Yade who has been dubbed "Nicolas Sarkozy's Condeleeza Rice".  They have been named respectively: Minister of Justice, Secretary of State for City Policy, and Secretary of State for Human Rights. The specific interest in their inclusion in the Sarkozy government highlights the government's attempt to present a diverse face to France, thus reflecting the evolution of a more multi-ethnic country. In her recent book Noirs de France [Blacks of France] Rama Yade, a political scientist, attempts to examine the complexities of identity, class, politics and race in France.

Why raise these issues in France in my reflections on U.S. presidential campaign politics? W.E.B. Dubois' prophetic statement appears not to be outdated here in the 21st century. Terms such as minorities, people of color and immigrants are racialized labels juxtaposed to the white majority. This terminology spreads within an increasingly globalized world within which Euro-centers continue to set the standards and define the terms. Can the election of Barack Obama bring about a color-blind politics? Did the election of Nelson Mandela and his dream of a "rainbow nation" usher in a fundamental change in the balance of power between the white minority and the black majority?

The challenge of the 21st century will be to confront the power and privilege of race.