The Legacy of Civil Rights in the 1980s

I found a document written by Kenneth B. Clark, a psychologist and civil rights activist, in 1980. The document attempts to provide a sort of prologue for the 1980s as well as Clark’s hopes for the decade. He begins his prologue with a presidential committee in 1946, which was tasked with inquiring into the condition of civil rights and making recommendations for improvements. Though the committee was often overlooked at the time, Clark notes its importance; for the first time in U.S. history, a president was recognizing that there might be something wrong with civil rights. The committee returned with a report that called for “the elimination of segregation based on race, color, creed, or national origin,” in all aspects of American life. To Clark, this signaled an important change in the future of United States. At the same time, he was hesitant to be too optimistic, as any push toward racial equality in the past had been overturned or overlooked. Nonetheless, this time proved to be different as activists and court decisions like Brown v. Board began to spell lasting racial changes in the country, however slow they were.

While Clark recognized a number of positive changes that occurred in the decades leading up to 1980, he also recognized some shortcomings. Public schools across the country remained segregated, with white students in Memphis, Atlanta and Chicago leaving public integrated public schools for private ones. He especially lambasted the Northern U.S., which made claims of commitment to racial justice, but repeatedly acted against it. Clark also notes that the economic situation for many African Americans has remained largely unchanged, as the majority of them held unskilled and semi-skilled blue collar jobs, which resulted in less pay for the community overall. Unemployment was also still a major issue along racial lines, with the 1977 jobless rate 6.3 percent for whites and 13.2 percent for blacks, over twice as much. These racial differences in employment were even more jarring among certain age groups, like youths. Black youth unemployment rates were as high as 55 percent in some communities, while the white youth unemployment rate peaked around 15 percent.

To Clark, the Civil Rights movement experienced mixed results. As a result of activists in the 1940s-70s, African Americans were able to, and did, vote in larger numbers in more places. At the same time, economic inequalities and discrimination in schooling practices persisted. Many of these triumphs and pitfalls are still present today, and they shape the ways in which we understand the complex history and legacy of the Civil Rights movement as a whole.

Source: https://bltc.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/getobject.pl?c.530:1.bltc.10875.10881.10884.10895.10899