and Native American communities were often excluded from legislation and conversation concerning education which did not allow them to advocate for the equal education. An example of the mitigation of sociopolitical debt is the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This piece of legislation ensured a voice to minorities within the political sphere. No such legislation has been passed that focuses on diminishing education inequalities. Affirmative action is the closest legislation that has had a strong impact. Although affirmative action benefited white women the most, observations show that the emergence of the Black middle class was aided by the policy. Moral component Moral debt is the final component of the education debt and “reflects disparity between what we know is right and what we actually do” (Ladson-Billings 2006). Moral debt is expressed as the lack of honor given when honor is due. There is no hesitation in giving honor to Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks. Another example of repaying moral debt are the reparations placed on Germany after WWII. Debate is happening on the basis of moral debt, reparations and success but much of the debate focuses on the individual and the responsibility of the individual to ensure success. “No nation can enslave a race of people for hundreds of years, set them free bedraggled and penniless, pit them, without assistance in a hostile environment, against privileged victimizers, and then reasonably expect the gap between the heirs of the two groups to narrow. Lines, begun parallel and left alone, can never touch.” Randall Robinson states. Individual responsibility becomes an unrealistic expectation when a group has been exploited, disenfranchised and oppressed for centuries. Selected articles Ladson-Billings, G.J. (2005). Is the team all right? Diversity and teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 56(2), 229-234. Ladson-Billings, G.J. (1996). Silences as weapons: Challenges of a Black professor teaching white students. Theory Into Practice, 35(2), 79-85. Ladson-Billings, G.J. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Education Research Journal, 35, 465-491. Ladson-Billings, G.J. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97, 47-68. Ladson-Billings, G.J. (1995). But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 34:3, 159-165. Chapters in edited texts Ladson-Billings, G. (2000). Racialized discourses and ethnic epistemologies. N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (eds). Handbook of Qualitative Research (Second edition) . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ladson-Billings, G.J. (1999). Just what is critical race theory