I went to the United States in 1963 to study at Harvard Law School. Coming from multiracial Singapore, I was quite shocked to find that America had a system of racial segregation akin to apartheid.

The few black students in my class, for example, could not eat at some restaurants which did not welcome black people. They could not stay at some hotels for the same reason. In 1963, the blacks in America were treated as second-class citizens.