QUOTE : The US Congress passes the first Civil Rights Act in March 1866. The law defines birthright citizenship, the idea that anyone born in the United States belongs to the nation. It conveys citizenship on the nearly ten percent of the American population once enslaved, whose legal status is still persona non grata, alien invader. The Civil Rights Act makes clear that blacks can own property, sue or be sued, make contracts and enforce them, give evidence in court -- ordinary things that whites think are natural. It is the first law of its kind. Yet the Civil Rights Act is a gesture at symbolic equity. It is not a material answer to 246 years of enslavement, and not at all an attempt at restitution.