The writers were trying to tap into what most of their fans would have recognized as being a touchstone of civil rights and black power protests in the 60s and 70s. I think it makes even more of a difference that is Avery Brooks involved, because he had been in a production of 12 Years of Slave. He was kind of seen as one of the great, strong black men of television at that time. And yet here he is in some ways giving a future American history lesson saying that the country has all these issues,. It has to solve before we can create a federation and fix the world. We have to fix the United States.