At the core of the epistemology of black identity in the 20th century United States is the assertion that freedom is a human right, not a privilege to be earned. By the late 19th century, an ideology of racial uplift had emerged that revolved around four concepts--compassion, service, education, and a commitment to social and economic justice for all citizens, as Kevin Gaines notes in "Uplifting the Race" (1996). These elements would form the foundation for black identity and the argument for racial integration in the United States. It was the strength of these ideals that ultimately civilized a plurality of American citizens between 1955 and 1965, resulting in the landmarks of the Civil Rights Movement (the "Brown" decision, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the confrontations in Selma and Birmingham (Alabama), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965). For the first time in American history, white Americans publicly rejected the legitimacy of white supremacy as a pillar of civilization. In this article, the author talks about blackness and whiteness as historical forces in the 20th century United States. He discusses the concept of whiteness based on the works of Tim Wise (2005) and David Roediger, who have undertaken the task to document the experience of identifying whiteness that shaped the last five centuries.