[AppyPappy]

“then demands that one celebrate white contributions to history”

One major difference. Whites were allowed. It’s easy to make a contribution when you are allowed to make a contribution. I remember working for a Fortune 100 company out of Chicago and they wanted us to lose our Southern accents. Quote “People won’t take you seriously if you talk like a hick. It’s just the way it is”. How can you argue with the way it is?
How many decades did people hear “Them black hands were made for holding a handle, not a pen. It’s just the way it is”?

It’s what they overcame that made their contribution so significant.

[LS]

Disagree. If you "overcome" great handicaps and end up on third base when the final out is made, you still lose. "Overcoming" is dramatic, but it's ultimately irrelevant. You don't care what the guy who had the wrong polio cure overcame, you only care that the guy who got the right cure was right.

"Trying" is commendable, but it does NOT equal achievement by itself, no matter what the odds.