But, more fundamentally, Selma was a time when the nation still was institutionally flawed regarding the reality that blacks, as citizens, faced.

As the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments followed the Civil War, so the Voting Rights Act of 1965 followed Selma.

The Rev. Martin Luther King pointed out that "It may be true that you cannot legislate morality, but behavior can be regulated." He observed that through legislation, he may not be able to get the other guy to love him, but he sure can use it to stop the guy from lynching him.

The chapter of history that Selma defined was a chapter when legislative action was needed to deal with the problem of race. In that sense, it was a defining moment.

But today, we do not have institutional problems. We have human problems.

Whereas King was correct -- that we can regulate behavior with legislation -- it is also true that this can only get us part of the way to solving our problems. Even after establishing legislative protections, we still have human reality to deal with. And in this sense, our achievements individually, and as a society, will only reflect our choices and qualities as individual human beings.

We just saw, in the grotesque case at Duke University, how charges of racism can be used as a political tool to serve the selfish goals of ambitious individuals. Sadly, the press, the NAACP, Sharpton, the president of Duke University and 88 members of the Duke faculty bought into the evil scheme of then-District Attorney Mike Nifong.

Black youth today must not submit to the politics of hatred, and not lose perspective that they live in a country that is free. They must not lose perspective that despite the limitations of the human condition -- that the tendency to do evil cannot be eradicated by legislation -- if they work hard, and keep their values intact, their dreams can be achieved.

So Jena is not a defining moment, but part of an ongoing reality toward which we must constantly be aware and toward which we must constantly be vigilant.