1960+to+present

=__//**The Quest** **for Racial Equality for African Americans FROM 1960 - PRESENT**//__= =// By: Steven //=

=**Racial Inequality**=

"Often there is discrimination by majority communities against minorities who live in the same area." In the past, imperialist countries have sent colonies to other lands, and have impressed it's laws and cultures on it. Sometimes, the former people of the land became slaves and seen as "inferior" or "insignificant" compared to others. People even in America, since the time of the slave trade, have had this racial mentality toward there African American bretheren! This report shall show the economic benefits and down falls during the time of the Civil Rights Movements. It was the time African Americans began to crack and finally fight for there equal rights. They were free...but were they equal?

=**Economic Down Fall**=

Since the beginning of communication (with railroad tracks), the [|Railway Act] has oppressed the African Americans. It gave white majority total control over the choices of black workers. That probably lowered there chance of ever getting a steady job. There jobs have always been unsteady economic chances and earnings. During the years 1950, 1980, and 1990, productive earnings did not occur. Progress has basically stalled since the 1980s. [|It has even gone down from 1980 - 2000].

earnings and average black percentile in the white earnings distribution//** //(Note: Data are from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) decennial census 1940–2000. The sample includes individuals between the ages of 26 and 45 who report positive wage and salary income and working at least 48 weeks in the previous calendar year. Sample weights ‘slwt’ are used for 1940 and 1950 and ‘perwt’ for 2000.)//
 * //Black–white ratio of average annual
 * || Men ||  || Women ||   ||
 * Year || Ratio || Percentile || Ratio || Percentile ||
 * 1940 || 0.45 || 0.167 || 0.39 || 0.126 ||
 * 1950 || 0.61 || 0.226 || 0.58 || 0.227 ||
 * 1960 || 0.60 || 0.214 || 0.63 || 0.268 ||
 * 1970 || 0.65 || 0.268 || 0.82 || 0.399 ||
 * 1980 || 0.73 || 0.343 || 0.97 || 0.494 ||
 * 1990 || 0.72 || 0.361 || 0.93 || 0.484 ||
 * 2000 || 0.70 || 0.367 || 0.88 || 0.464 ||



=**Economic Gains or Benefits**=

If you look closely at the chart above, you would see that the majority of African American people were close to an economic equality with others. As shown, the trend rose in the years 1940s, 1960s, and the 1970s. Professionals that contributed to the [|New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics], like Smith and Welch, stress that the Black progress rose significantly during the Civil Rights era. They believe groups of African Americans earnings rose a lot during the 1960s and 1970s decades mainly because of the gains of the southern areas were civil rights were imposed on local communities by the Federal Government.

=**The Great Migration**=

Another great period of time was also occurring with the Civil Rights movement. It has been going before the 1960s! It all began with the thirst of greater economic chance in the North. All former slaves that were released had nowhere to go, for they had no money. So they ended up becoming share croppers with there old masters or with other farmers. Yet, in the 1910 - 1920, the time of the boil weevil infestation, the Southern economy went down. So the tenant farmers left there racist atmosphere to go north, witch was more industrialized and had better chances. This was called the Great Migration! Ever since, there has been more and more pushes for the African American to go North. Racism was a great push. The [|KKK] (Ku Klux Klan), a violent racist group, pushed many Blacks to the North where segregation wasn't large and jobs were plentyful. There KKK was less effective. Even propaganda was a great influence or push for the African American race. Many newspapers like the "Chicago Defender" and "Pittsburgh Courier" (both from the North) and the [|NAACP]'s Crisis Magazine published articles that encouraged blacks to leave the South for there own economic good! Another push that was so effective to the African Americans was industrialization and WWI. The needs of war required factories to make needed materials for Europe and the U.S. Unfortunately, the U.S. had closed its doors to European immigrants during the war, lowering the North's labor force. The war industries looked to the South to make up its work force. So agents from the North actually came to hire workers in the South and because poor economic state of the South, people were really attracted to the offer. They were so successful, that the South placed recruitment licenses that cost between $500 - $2,000. The high price didn't matter compared to the return on there investments. And the prices were really high at the time. If you put inflation into consideration, $500.00 - $2,000.00 back then is about [|$10,131.89 - $40,527.57] today!!! So southerners couldn't really understand why the African Americans fled the South, it had been there home for over 200 years. To prevent some migration, officials placed financial burdens so they can't move. Well, all in all, the migration came to a total halt around the year 1965.

=**Equal Employment Opportunity Commission**=

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a Federal agency with the job of ending employment discrimination in the U.S.A! This agency was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy by the Executive Order 10925. It can charge a law suit for declared victims of discrimination against private employers. The EEOC's command is specified under Title VII of the [|Civil Rights Act of 1964] (a landmark legislation in the U.S. that outlawed segregation in schools and public), the [|Equal Pay Act] (an issue involving equal pay between man and woman), [|Age Discrimination in Employment Act] (bans employment discrimination against people 40 years old or older. It also sets standards for retirement benefits provided by employers and requires that info. about the needs of older workers be given to the public.), the [|Rehabilitation Act of 1973] (a legislation t hat guarantees certain rights to people with disabilities), and the [|Americans with Disabilities Act] (is a wide-ranging civil rights law that bans, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability).

A unit was created in 1978 to handle the thousands of federal equal employment complaints inherited from the [|Civil Service Commission]. It gets plenty of backlog complaints, it's expected to be somewhere around +47,500!!! Now that's a lot...

=**"Now, what to do...?"**=

We live in the new century, and we say sometimes that racism and discrimination is all a thing of the far far past. WRONG! We see today all the time, just try to open your eyes to it. Today, the ratios of black to white earning are falling, and there economic statuses are unequal! People must act in order to do something about the horrible wrong. Job Opportunist campaigns say just offering a chance for equal jobs isn't enough. They say, those who are in a "whole" that deep need help to climb out! People that are for action suggest: free training, extra unpaid leave, and major legal and financial reforms to remove prejudice from society.

Well whatever we do, we have to do it! This economic horror should not be tolerated with. We, as in "together united", should find a good way and abolish this disadvantage. Let America set the footsteps for the rest of the world!

"...equal opportunity policies should be judge not by their good intentions, but by their practical results..."

=** Sources: **=

- Edd, Noell. "RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, THE POLICE POWER AND THE 1964 CIVIL RIGHTS." Gordon College. Gordon College. 26 Feb 2008 .

- "Forthcoming in the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics." __University of Chicago Personal Web Pages__. University of Chicago. 26 Feb 2008 <[|http://home.uchicago.edu/~n9na/my-final-web-rev.pdf>.]

- "The Great Migration." __ADAH: Alabama Department of Archimes & History__. ADAH. 29 Feb 2008 [|.]

- "Equal Employment Opportunity Commission." __Wikipedia__. 17 Feb 2008. Wikipedia. 4 Mar 2008 .

- MacDonald, Fiona. __Equal Oportunities__. Suffolk, UK:

- "Alternate Dispute Resolution/Mediation." __The College of Physicians and__. 28 Feb 2008. Flapping Ear Production. 9 Mar 2008 [|.] (picture)

- "GM-volt." __GM-volt__. GM. 9 Mar 2008 <[|http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.gm-volt.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/money.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.gm-volt.com/index.php%3Fs%3Dslated&h=480&w=329&sz=65&hl=en&start=12&um=1&tbnid=ypC70Q96iuH12M:&tbnh=129&tbnw=88&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmoney%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4DKUS_enUS256US257>.] (picture)

- __amazon.de__. 2008. Amazon. 9 Mar 2008 [|www.amazon.de/.../dp/0333786769] (picture)

=Links Used:=

- "The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics." __Wikipedia__. 24 Jan 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 4 Mar 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Palgrave:_A_Dictionary_of_Economics.

- "Ku Klux Klan." __Wikipedia__. 5 Mar 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 9 Mar 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KKK.

- "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People." __Wikipedia__. 26 Feb 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 4 Mar 2008 [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP.]

- "Inflation Calculator." __Ceci n'est pas une homepage__. 4 Mar 2008 [|http://www.westegg.com/inflation/.]

- "Civil Rights Act of 1964." __Wikipedia__. 7 Mar 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 4 Mar 2008 [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964.]

- "Equal pay for women." __Wikipedia__. 20 Feb 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 4 Mar 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Pay_Act.

- "Age Discrimination in Employment Act." __Wikipedia__. 26 Feb 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 4 Mar 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employment_Act.

- "1973 Rehabilitation Act." __Wikipedia__. 7 Jan 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 4 Mar 2008 [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_Act_of_1973.]

- "Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990." __Wikipedia__. 5 Mar 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 4 Mar 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990.

- "United States Civil Service Commission." __Wikipedia__. 5 Feb 2008. WIKIMEDIA. 4 Mar 2008 [|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Civil_Service_Commission.]