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" Because they marched , America became more gratis and reasonable , " President Barack Obama allege yesterday ( Aug. 28 ) as he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington .
But 50 years after the March for Jobs and Freedom , whenMartin Luther King Jr. , fork up his inspiration " I Have a Dream " speech , gap between blacks and whites persist . Many of the issues remain the same as they did in 1963 : Poverty , unemployment , voting right and racial disparity in Education Department . New burdens include the criminalization and mass captivity of blackamoor , both adults and children . [ 7 Reasons America Still ask Civil Rights Movements ]
African-Americans carrying signs for equal rights, integrated schools, decent housing and an end to bias during the 1963 March on Washington.
Progress has stalled oncivil right hand , Obama said yesterday . He encouraged the decade of one thousand of infantryman at the memorial to continue fighting for civil rights . " America , I know the route will be long , but I jazz we can get there , " Obama said .
Noliwe Rooks , a Cornell University prof and expert in racial inequality in education , correspond that America still needs a civil rights social movement . " These inequities literally cost the area 1000000000000 of dollars each class , and yet we do nothing as the trouble start uncollectible , " Rooks told LiveScience . " We but have not had any federal legislation to substantively deal racial separatism since the [ 1968 Fair Housing Act ] and there does n’t seem to be the will to do so today , " she said . ( The enactment was meant to facilitate terminate racial discrimination by householder and landlords . )
mouth about race
But Rooks thinks the current political and societal climate make it hard to discuss race . " I utterly think that we need a civil right trend today , but I often jest that we could never have one focalize on race and racial inequity , because everyone affect would be called aracist , or be charge of playing the backwash card , " she said . " I think that is part of the intellect we do n’t really seem to have notice that in many place racial separatism has returned in full force and with it two clearly different paths for many Americans ground on airstream , " Rooks say .
survey and polls showdwindling support among whites for civic right . For example , a Pew Research Center poll found 70 percent of blacks think they are treat less moderately than whites in dealings with the police . Only 37 percent of White said the same .
" There was tolerant pop musical accompaniment among White in the sixties for [ shift ] these kinds of inequalities , " articulate Clarence Lusane , an expert in politics and airstream relations at American University in Washington , D.C. " That does n’t exist today . " [ Understanding the 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors ]
Poverty and jobs
Today , though the black middle year has grow to about 10 percent of all dark households , the unemployment rate stay twice that of whites ( 12.6 percent vs. 6.6 percentage in 2012 ) . Only 12 percentage of white children know in arena ofconcentrated poorness , compare with 45 percent of black children , according to a 2012 report from the Economic Policy Institute .
The 1963 March on Washington was organized by A. Philip Randolph , who founded the first black labor mating . economical equality and business were as important to the marcher as exemption . " Yes , we desire all public accommodations open to all citizen , but those accommodations will entail little to those who can not afford to use them , " Randolph say in his 1963 speech .
The poor are overleap from modernistic discussion about civil rights , Lusane tell LiveScience . " The language that derive from most policymakers is about saving the middle class , which is true , but there are also trillion of halfway family who are about to be much poorer , " he said . The population of pitiable Americans in the suburbs , those living below the Union impoverishment line , grew by 64 pct between 2000 and 2010 , consort to the Brookings Institution .
But unlike the sixties , there is no prominent push to restore the effects ofpovertyin America , Lusane tell . " I would argue that we have n’t seen that in X . "
Education
schooling are more segregated now than they were 30 year ago . Thirty per centum of inglorious students advert schools where classrooms are 90 to 100 percent shameful or Latino , according to a 2012 study by the Civil Rights Project . lily-white tiddler go to school where only 32 pct of students exist in poverty , but mordant students attend to schooling where more than one-half of students are poor ( 59 percentage . )
But even when schooltime are racially interracial , students of vividness still faceracial stereotypes , as they are shunted into special teaching more frequently than whites , and get less access code to talented programs and advanced placement classes . government activity policies have also shifted the burden of pay for college onto students , make a scholarly person debt crisis that limits memory access to higher educational activity .
" What we have is an apartheid schooling system where your skin color and your goose egg code really make up one’s mind where you have an chance to read and keep abreast your dreams , " say Travis Gosa , a Cornell University prof whose research concenter on African - American youth and education .
prison house
Thanks to the War on drug , there are more blacks in the correctional system today — in prison or jailhouse , on probation or countersign — than in slavery in 1850 , according to research by Michelle Alexander , a professor at Ohio State University . Blacks are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites , concord to an American Civil Liberties Union report . Enforcing marijuana jurisprudence costs about $ 3.6 billion a year , the report allege .
But even without arrests for drugs , blackness are put in prison at rates six time gamy than White person , the NAACP finds . Controversial stop - and - frisking practices target people with bootleg or chocolate-brown cutis people of color . In New York City , where a federal judge recently found the insurance violate nonage ' civil rights , only 10 percent of encounters result in arrests or tickets . " The humiliation an individual has to live with from Clarence Day to Clarence Day , it almost stimulate you to sour on the organization , " enunciate Robert Harris , a Cornell University expert in African - American history .
vote rights
Criminal record book abnegate voting rights and lead story tojob , education and trapping discrimination . Across the country , 13 percent of black men have lose the right hand to vote , grant to the Brennan Center for Justice . The disenfranchisement , combine with raw efforts by states to curtailvoting rights , prompt Harris of the post - Reconstruction period straight off follow the Civil War .
" We live in an era where the old Jim Crow segregation has become Mr. James Crow , Esq . , " Harris told LiveScience . " It used be new , blatant , ' You ’re not allowed here , ' and ' You ca n’t vote , ' " he said . " Now they say everyone is able to vote , but then there are laws pass reminiscent of the old understanding article during the post - Reconstruction epoch , which were used to disenfranchise African - Americans , " he allege . The understanding clauses were " literacy " tests used to exclude black elector . [ Busted : 6 Civil War Myths ]
The golden anniversary of the March on Washington is a reminder , Harris say : " African - Americans have to be more conscious of maintain our rightfulness . We ca n’t permit our guard down . "
