A Common Destiny Blacks and American Society (1989) / Chapter Skim
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Summary and Conclusions
Summary and Conclusions
Pages 1-32
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From page 2... ...
Romare Bearden The Family (1948) Watercolor and gouache on paper The Evans-Tibbs Collection, Washington, D.C.
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A large majority of blacks lived in poverty, and very few black children had the opportunity to receive a basic education; indeed, black children were still forced to attend inferior and separate schools in jurisdictions that had not accepted the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court declaring segregated schools unconstitutional. Today the situation is very different.
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From page 4... ...
Racial discrimination continues despite the victories of the civil rights movement. Yet, the problems faced today by blacks who are isolated from economic and social progress are less directly open to political amelioration than were the problems of legal segregation and the widely practiced overt discrimination of a few decades past.
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In particular, black Americans' central role in several constitutional crises-their past status as slaves and the debates over slavery during the Constitutional Convention of 1787; the fighting of the Civil War; the denial of blacks' basic citizenship until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s-has frequently focused international attention on blackwhite relations in the United States. In view of this history, race is likely to retain much of its saliency as a feature of American society for some time.
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From page 6... ...
Beyond this brief picture lies a more complex set of changes that affect the relative status of black Americans: · The greatest economic gains for blacks occurred in the 1940s and 1960s. Since the early 1970s, the economic status of blacks relative to whites has, on average, stagnated or deteriorated.
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From page 7... ...
These developments may be understood as consequences of four interdependent events that have altered the status of blacks, relative black-white status, and race relations in the United States. These events were the urbanization and northern movement of the black population from 1940 to 1970; the civil rights movement that forced the nation to open its major institutions to black participation during the same three decades; the unprecedented high and sustained rate of national economic growth for roughly the same period; and the significant slowdown in the U.S.
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From page 8... ...
American children under age 18-white, black, Hispanic, Native American, and AsianArnerican-were being raised in families with incomes below official poverty standards. Among minorities the conditions were worse: for example, 45 percent of black children and 39 percent of Hispanic children were living in poverty.
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From page 9... ...
But the signs of distress that are most visible in parts of the black population are becoming more discernible within the entire population. This distress should be viewed in the context of the underlying changes within American society that affect not only black-white differences, but all disadvantaged blacks and whites who face the difficult economic conditions of the late 1980s.
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From page 10... ...
For example, differences in black-white voting patterns result from persistent economic and social inequalities that impede electoral participation regardless of race; individual blacks now participate as much or more than whites of comparable socioeconomic status (Chapter 5~. Similarly, differences in socioeconomic status account for the entire black-white difference in high school dropout rates (Chapter 7~.
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From page 11... ...
For example, because of higher geographic concentrations of poor households among blacks, segregated residential areas affect the quality of schools and medical care available to lowincome blacks more than they affect the availability of these resources to higher income blacks or low-income whites. And we have already noted that changes in the national economy have had particularly negative effects on lower status Americans, white and black.
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From page 12... ...
100 80 Z 60 C: cr 111 40 20 o FIGURE S-3 Median residential sea regation in 29 metropolitan areas with the largest black populations. 100 80 Z 60 LL 4o 20 o _~ 1960 1970 1980 YEAR Note: 100 = total segregation; 0 = no segregation.
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From page 13... ...
In contrast with whites, blacks have highly favorable views of the high activity years of government policy intervention of the 1960s. As a consequence of their heightened group consciousness, their belief that racial discrimination remains a major deterrent to black progress, and their history of collective social expression, black Americans vote at the same or higher rates than whites of comparable socioeconomic status, support redistributive policies more often than do whites, and participate in a divider variety of political activity.
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From page 14... ...
Other effects on black institutions and organizations have been produced by the civil rights movement. Greater access to majority white institutions by higher status blacks' has led to alterations in black leadership structure, problems of recruitment and retention of black talent by black organizations, and reduced participation in many spheres of black life by those blacks.
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20: 15 10 Democratic _ O Republican 1 1 1 1= l 1940 1968 YEAR FIGURE S-5 Black elected officials. 7 ,,, 6 In o cr LL m in 5 o 1 a y 1940 1970 1985 YEAR FIGURE S-7 Black officials and administrators, by level of government.
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From page 16... ...
A review of blacks' status shows that increased civil rights have been important in all areas of society. ECONOMIC STATUS Changes in labor market conditions and social policies of governments have had many beneficial effects on the economic status of black Americans.
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In terms of per capita incomes, family incomes, and male workers' earnings, blacks gained relative to whites fairly steadily from 1939 to 1969; measures of relative status peaked in the early to mid-1970s and since have remained stagnant or declined. Women earn much less than men, but the gap between black and white women decreased steadily throughout the period until, by 1984, black women had earnings very close to those of white women.
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From page 18... ...
The major developments accounting for black gains in earnings and occupation status from 1939 to 1969 were South-to-North migration and concurrent movement from agricultural to nonagricultural employment, job creation, and national economic growth. After 1965, major factors responsible for improvements in blacks' status have been government policies against discrimination, government incentives for the equal employment opportunity of minorities, general changes in race relations, and higher educational attainment.
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From page 19... ...
Standards of academic performance for teachers and students are not equivalent in schools that serve predominantly black students and those that serve predominantly white students. Nor are equal encouragement and support provided for the educational achievement and attainment of black and white students.
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FIGURE S-14 College graduates aged 25-29, by race. 25 20 Z 15 LL LL 10 5 o Black - ~ White 940 1970 1984 YEAR educational attainment is noncompletion: high school dropout rates for blacks are double those for whites.
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Access to early and appropriate prenatal care prevents low birthweight, infant mortality, and infant neurological damage and other morbidity and reduces maternal mortality. Prenatal care for black mothers lags behind that for whites.
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Preventive health services as well as assured continuity in management of chronic health conditions would reduce deaths and disability. Poverty and limited bed capacity in care centers, combined with discrimination, pose special problems of access to long-term health care for elderly blacks.
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From page 23... ...
As long as there are great disparities in the socioeconomic status of blacks and whites, blacks will continue to be overrepresented in the criminal justice system as victims and offenders. And because of these disparities, the precise degree to which the overrepresentation reflects racial bias cannot be determined.
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1 1 n Black O White 1959 1 969 YEAR _ 1 35 30 1~ co 25 LL] ~ 20 Z ° 15 _ ~ Dig 10 ~O _ ~ 1984 1 950 o Black O White '~ 1970 1 985 YEAR Note: Median family income is calculated in 1985 constant dollars.
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From page 25... ...
The greater inequality between family types among blacks has important consequences for the welfare of future generations. Black female-headed families were 50 percent of all black families with children in 1985, but had 25 percent of total black family income, while 70 percent of black family income was received by black husband-wife families.
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From page 26... ...
And, on the basis of the fertility rates of 1986, 170 of 1,000 black females become mothers before the age of 20, often disrupting or discontinuing their secondary educations. These young mothers are likely to be poor as they establish households, and they will frequently have to receive family assistance benefits.
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From page 27... ...
(considering the 16 metropolitan areas that had the largest black populations in 1980 and using an index for which 100 means all blacks and all whites live in distinct racially homogeneous neighborhoods and zero if all people are randomly distributed, the average index value for black-white residential segregation was about 80. This reflects a drop of about 6 points, on average, from the segregation level of 1970.
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From page 28... ...
When the Bureau of the Census first measured family incomes in 1947, blacks' median incomes were 51 percent of whites'. During the years of economic expansion and civil rights legislation, the status of blacks improved: by 1974, the median income of black families was 62 percent that of white families.
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From page 29... ...
Several specific policy interventions have been effective in promoting black advancement and greater opportunities for all Americans. Most successful have been employment and training programs such as the Job Corps; early intervention and other compensatory education programs such as Head Start; governmental financial aid for postsecondary education; increased access to health care, particularly for pre- and postnatal clinical service for lowincome women; and greater health insurance coverage for all poor and nearpoor people.
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From page 30... ...
Income-maintenance and family assistance programs have developed to meet residual problems not solved by general economic growth and equal opportunity measures. For example, although better education and job training programs have a potential for helping to place workers into available jobs, they will not overcome all the barriers that keep many single mothers and men out of the labor force.
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From page 31... ...
A specific source of possible social turbulence is widespread dissatisfaction with the operation of the criminal justice system, which is evident among black Americans. The allegations of bias are two sided: that law enforcement officials, judicial proceedings, and the correctional system treat blacks with undue harshness, and that the system is too lenient with whites who commit criminal offenses against blacks.
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From page 32... ...
These latter tasks of social integration and cultural maintenance tend to be discounted and neglected in a task-oriented society that focuses attention on short-run payoffs. In the United States of the coming decades, any agenda for these basic needs will have to give high priority to dealing with the fissures that have been created by the history of relations among black and white Americans.
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