Hmm...we weren't here then either.  Perhaps you should take this up with W.E.B. Dubois.  It wasn't merely 'past' when he wrote it.

And the United States' inherently white supremacist social, political, economic, legal and educational institutions--and the policies and practices implemented therefrom--are still very much with us.  Only a little more circumspect, but even more devastating in consequence because of that--American white supremacy wasn't abducted by aliens in 1964 with the passage of Brown vs the Kansas Board of Education.

But you are correct--I'm not advocating we relive the past.  I will struggle to redirect the future from following the same path.  For the sake of my children and grandchildren I have to.  But to pretend the past no longer effects the present is even worse than reliving the past.  You don't cure a disease by pretending it doesn't exist.