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Struggle for Equality

This state of affairs remained unchanged until the United States Supreme Court declared in 1954 that racially segregated public schools did not provide equal educational opportunities for black Americans and were therefore illegal. 

The success of a year-long boycott of dty buses in Montgomery, Alabama also inspired the blacks. On Dec.1, 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a White man on a crowded bus. Her defiance led to organization of the Montgomery Improvement Association,headed by 26-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister with a Hi. D from Boston University. The bus boycott was the first of many instances in which nonviolent action was employed as a means of obtaining for Blacks the rights the white already enjoyed. From the late 1950s until his assassination by a white gunman in 1968, King led thousands of black Americans in nonviolent inarches and demonstrations against segregation and other forms of racial discrimination.

King’s goal was to bring about greater assimilation of black people into the larger American culture. He wanted greater equality of opportunity and “freedom now” for his people. He did not wish to separate his people from American society but rather to gain for them a larger part in it Some black leaders, such as Malcolm X, urged a rejection of basic American values and complete separation of blacks from the white culture. Malcolm believed that American values were nothing more than “white man’s values” used to keep blacks in an inferior position. He believed that blacks must separate themselves from whites, by force if necessary, and build their own society based on values that they would create for themselves. Because he saw Christianity as a “white” religion, Malcolm turned to a faith based on Islam, and became a leader of the “black Muslim” jBsdth (founded in 1930). The great majority of American blacks, however, shared Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Protestant religious beliefs and his goal of assimilation rather than separation.

Largely as a result of King’s activities,two major civil limits laws were passed during the 1960s that removed racial segregation from public facilities in the South and also removed the barriers that had prevented black people from voting in that region. These two laws helped to bring about a significant degree of assimilation of blacks into the larger American culture. Most important, the laws eventually helped to reduce the amount of white prejudice toward black people in all parts of the country. African Americans hold offices in all levels of government — local, state and national. They are sports and entertainment heroes, university professors,medical doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and reporters. There is a sizable black middle class. More than 80% of the white say chat they would vote for a black for president, someone like General Colin Powell.

Black Americans have made significant progress in many areas, but inequality remains in all sectors, and there is sdll a gulf between the races. Gains in earning power have barely kept pace with inflation; black families are susceptible to the problems associated with a low-incomc group that also faces discrimination and prejudice; blacks are more likely to be victims of crimes as well as to be arrested for violent crimes, and as many as one in five young males now have a criminal record, but they have a less powerful role in the judicial system than do whites. The subordination of blacks is also apparent in the delivery of health care. Blacks have made substantial gains in elective office, but still are not represented in proportion to their share of the population. Althou^i African - Americans represent about 13% of the population, they are grossly underrepresented in Congress. The median income of a married black man working fulldme is 23% behind a married white man. Segregation and discrimination are against the law, but residential patterns create, largely segregated neighborhood schools in many urban areas. Half the whites in the US live in the suburbs, but only a fourth of the blacks. Many blacks are trapped in cycles of poverty, unemployment, violence and despair in the inner dty. Over 40% of all black children live in poverty and many have only one parent. 70% of black children arc bom to unmarried women. Who is to blame? In a recent poll, 44% of blacks said the problems are due to white discrimination against them. Only 20% of whites agree.

Some experts believe that blacks in the US have had more difficulty being accepted by the white majority than have other racial and ethnic groups such as Hispanics, Native Indians, and Asians. Therefore, racial and cultural separatism is a stronger force with them than with other minority groups.

In the 1830s, French writer dc Tocqueville described the trouble between blacks and whites in the US: these two races arc fastened to each other without intermin^ing; and they are unable to separate entirely or to combine. Althou^i the law may abolish sb.very, God alone can obliterate the traces of its existence.

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