KEN BURNS, Filmmaker:

Like the amputated limb felt long after it has been cut off, I miss Trayvon Martin. I was once a 17-year-old who wore a hooded sweatshirt walking through unfamiliar neighborhoods, but I was never gunned down.

I miss Tamir Rice too. I was 11 once and played with plastic guns, but no cop ever shot me.

We are missing many hundreds, if not thousands, of African-Americans, lost only because of the color of their skin in just the last decade. Most of the occurrences we documented in our recent Jackie Robinson film, as Brough (ph) said — he crossed the color line, by the way, 69 years ago last month — are happening again in our present day: Confederate Flag issues, driving while black, stop and frisk, burned black churches, integrated suburban swimming pool problems, housing bias, racial taunts, cynical political calculations that ignore African-Americans, and a version of Black Lives Matter, to name just a few.

I do not believe, ladies and gentlemen, there is a hell, as most of our religions reliably report, just the one we humans make for ourselves and each other right here.