CIVIL RIGHTS, 30 YEARS LATER

...By providing Carter with 94 percent of their votes, black Americans clearly gave him his edge over Ford...

...Blacks continue to be overrepresented in lowpaying, low-skill jobs...

...Between 1964 and 1966 the economic gap between black and white median family income decreased by about 8 percent...

...The percentage of black families earning low incomes, compared to white families, is quite striking...

...Between 1948 and 1977 black unemployment averaged 9 percent, about twice the rate for whites...

...Still, an examination shows that progress is much more modest than many believe, revealing the limitation of political without economic change...

...For example, the figures below contrast black and white voting in recent elections: Years: 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 Black Vote 58% 42% 58%/c 44% 52% 34% 49% White Vote 71% 57 ( 69% 56% 64% 46% 61% Notice that a simple majority of qualified blacks voted in the presidential elections of 1964, 1968, and 1972, but only 44 percent voted in 1970, and only 34 percent in 1974...

...While blacks have gained the ballot, they have increasingly become aware that the franchise alone is a modest resource in an elite, special-interest-dominated political structure committed to an economic philosophy that exploits and excludes millions of citizens...

...Only 27.6 percent of all black families had incomes in excess of $15,000, and 75 percent of these families earned below $25,000...

...Much has been made of the fact that with increases in black voting, the number of black elected officials spiraled...

...473...

...Outside the South black incomes seem to have stabilized at about 75 percent of white incomes, and this condition seems highly resistant to improvement...

...Perhaps 30 percent of all black families have found their way into the middle class—but a very large percentage of all blacks, perhaps a majority, seem to have been little affected by the movement...

...Additionally, as economist Joel Dreyfuss has estimated, there may be a million youths living in these city ghettos who will neverhave decent jobs, a home, or a stable family...

...This assumption has proven to be wrong...

...Notes I Donald J. McCrone and Richard J. Hardy, "Civil Rights Policies and the Achievement of Racial Economic Equality, 1948-1975," American Journal of Political Science (22:1), February 1978, pp...

...As modest as black economic gains have been when compared to white income, there is evidence that the gains are in some ways more meager than the national figures indicate...

...By the mid 1970s about 24 percent of blacks (compared to 40 percent of whites) held whitecollar jobs but only a very small percentage of all high-status, high-paying positions...

...2 John Herbers, "Black-White Split Persists A Decade After Warning," New York Times, February 26, 1978, p. 28...

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...The financial impact of high rates of black unemployment and subemployment, and modest gains in employment upgrading is painfully obvious...

...Only 49 percent of eligible blacks voted in the presidential election of 1976...

...A basic assumption of the civil rights movement was that if blacks could gain the ballot, they could obtain political concessions that would bring them into the economic, social, and political mainstream of American society...

...Blacks represent only about 9 percent of the work force, and they constitute about 19 percent of all service workers and nonfarm laborers...

...THERE ARE TWO immediate reasons why black economic gains have been so modest...

...If discouraged black job-seekers, both adults and teenagers, were added to these figures the black unemployment rate would be much worse...

...The authors speculate that black gains in the South might top out at the 70 to 75 percent level, leaving blacks disproportionately and permanently mired in the lower quintile of the income scale...

...First, black unemployment and subemployment rates have been allowed to remain extremely high...

...The potential for black families to extricate themselves from poverty is lower than it is for many white families, because 69 percent of all poor black families are headed by a woman...

...At the other end of the spectrum, 38.6 percent of all black families earned less than $7,000 in 1976, compared to 15.7 percent of all white families...

...Yet Carter has all but ignored the needs of black Americans and has taken some actions that have caused a deterioration in black gains...

...Louis, 472 Gary, Houston, Memphis, and New Orleans— remain relatively untouched by change...

...Outside the South black citizens have made almost no gains, relative to white incomes—and McCrone and Hardy's research showed that black gains in the South are significantly related to conditions in the economy...

...By 1971 the number of black elected officials had increased dramatically, with 14 blacks serving in Congress, almost 200 serving in state legislatures and state executive offices, and 81 serving as mayors (47 in the South...

...The Carter administration is a case in point...

...Large black communities in American cities— such neighborhoods as Harlem, Watts, the South Bronx, the ghettos of Detroit, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Newark, Cleveland, St...

...The frequent lack of relationship between black voting and policy gains has at least in part contributed to the erosion of black confidence in the ballot, causing substantial decreases in black participation rates...

...Millions of middle-aged and elderly people have simply been left behind...

...Progress continued with 3,503 black elected officials in 1975, with 18 blacks in Congress, 281 in state legislative and executive posts, and 135 mayors...

...By 1978 the total number of black elected officials reached 4,022...

...Only 13.3 percent of all white families were living in poverty or earning less than 25 percent more than the poverty threshold for their family size...

...In 1977, the income of 31.3 percent of all black families were below the poverty threshold for their family size, while only 8.9 percent of all white families were poor in 1977...

...2 Within these ghettos live millions of black Americans who may have been banished permanently from the Great American Dream...

...Donald J. McCrone and Richard J. Hardy have shown that the decreases in the difference between white and black 471 incomes are almost entirely limited to the South...

...By 1976 a majority (52.5 percent) of all white families earned in excess of $15,000...

...Even when black voters provide the margin of victory for candidates, their interests are often ignored...

...3 Given the biases and flaws of American capitalism, there may simply be no place for them...

...The evidence shows, then, that the civil rights movement opened the door to middle-class American prosperity for merely a small percentage of blacks, and mostly for those with the best educational and family backgrounds who could take advantage of available opportunities...

...Between 1975 and early 1979 black unemployment remained above 13 percent, the highest unemployment rate for blacks since World War H. Black teenage unemployment rates have remained above the crisis level for years, hovering around 40 percent...

...In 1975 black median family income increased to 61.5 percent of white family income, but it decreased to 59 percent in 1976 and to 57 percent (lower than in 1966) in 1977...

...No one would deny that a great deal of positive change has taken place during this period, producing many gains for black Americans...

...Low rates of unemployment and healthy economic growth characterize those periods in which blacks do make gains relative to whites...

...The National Urban League recently calculated that unemployed and discouraged blacks make up 23.1 percent of the black labor force...

...only 30 percent of minority men and 15 percent of minority women were so employed...

...by 1966 the ratio was 58 percent, a figure that changed only I to 2 points over the next nine years...

...The acid test of the impact of increased black political clout is economic gains, especially compared to the white population...

...Often these women are poorly educated, untrained in marketable skills, low in self-confidence, and needed in the home—and so their chances of escaping poverty are usually slim...

...By 1977 about half of all white men were in relatively high-wage professional managerial or skilled craft occupations...

...In 1964 there were only 103 black elected officials in America, 16 of which held elective office in the South...

...3 Joel Dreyfuss, "Black Progress Myth and Ghetto Reality, Progressive, November 1977, p. 22...

...These black officials are often stymied by limited financial resources, by impoverished city and state budgets, and by their small numbers...

...As impressive as these gains may seem, black representation in elective office in 1978 equaled less than 1 percent of all elected officials in America...

...As John Herbers has written: A composite of them would be a land of several thousand square miles, of rubble-strewn streets and vacant blocks, abandoned stores, stripped-down hulks of automobiles, bleak and comparted public and private housing projects, battered school buildings, old men with glazed eyes...

...Combined, these areas constitute a metropolis of misery...

...Second, progress in employment upgrading for blacks has been significant but limited and slow...

...And while blacks make up only 6 percent of the workers in wholesale and retail trades, finance, insurance, and real estate, they constitute 21 percent of the workers in personal service industries, 14 percent of hospital and health service workers, and 12 percent of public employees...

...In 1964 black median family income averaged 50 percent of white median family income...

...However, when the economy is sluggish blacks make no gains, regardless of civil rights laws.' McCrone and Hardy question whether it is possible within our current economic framework ever to close the gap between black and white incomes...

...The evidence indicates that black economic gains have been modest at best, and recently are declining...

...A staggering 41 percent of all black families in 1977 were either below the poverty level or had incomes that were less than 25 percent above the poverty level for their family size...