I still have about half of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019 left to read this week. But I’m still thinking about one particular passage from one particular piece included within its choir of voices, “Whipped for Lying with a Black Woman” by Ijeoma Oluo. This piece holds a passage that illustrates a part of Black History we so often willfully forget or purposefully neglect to remember: how racism was codified into the very laws of our nation since its very inception, as far back as 1630 when the colonies were still taking shape.