The Republican party, Donald Trump and the media all came under fire in this year’s Hutchins Forum, in the midst of what will surely be remembered as one of the most consequential presidential elections in modern time.

Editor’s Note: What follows is an edited version of opening remarks delivered by the author at the annual Hutchins Forum at the Old Whaling Church.

Panelists participating in the annual Hutchins Forum last week at the Old Whaling Church took on the broad-ranging topic of whether black millennials are ready to carry the mantle for civil rights.

A sense of excitement filled the Old Whaling Church on Friday evening as visitors from around the country filtered in for the 14th annual Hutchins Forum, sponsored by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

Politics are poisoned by bitter partisanship, economic disparities between whites and minorities are widening and trust between these groups seems to be eroding, complicating efforts to bridge America’s divisions. These were among the many observations by panelists at the annual Hutchins Forum Thursday evening in Edgartown.

There were plenty of problems on the table and few easy solutions at hand as an influential panel convened Thursday evening to discuss the issue that has gone unnoticed in this issue-laden presidential election year: unemployment and high poverty rates in the African American community.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, few “would have anticipated that in the year 2012, we would have the largest black middle class in American history,” said forum host Dr. Henry Louis (Skip) Gates Jr.