Urban League: Progress slows for blacks

By Hazel Trice EdneyNNPA Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA)— Despite civil rights gains since the 1960s, socioeconomic progress in black America appears to be on a “blackslide,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial said in recenet remarks recently coinciding with the annual release of the organization’s annual State of Black America report. “We see that when it comes to the unemployment rate between black America and white America, the gap grows wider. When it comes to the number of long-term unemployed African Americans, the gap grows wider,” said Morial. “And, when it comes to African American families building wealth and savings, the gap grows wider still. And as this gap grows wider and the road grows longer, we see that 40 years later we are in danger of erasing all the gains we have made thus far. I’ve come to think of this danger as the Great blackslide.” The annual black progress report, first issued in 1976 under then Executive Secretary Vernon Jordan, paints a grim picture: “In 2005, America commemorates the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as the height of the civil rights movement, and yet, this year’s State of Black America Report’s Equality Index reveals despite societal gains, the overall status of blacks is just 73 percent of their white counterparts, marginally unchanged from the 2004 report,” the report said. “More significantly, the widest disparity for blacks remain in economics, revealing an economic status for African Americans of 57 percent compared to their white counterparts. Although slight improvements are noted, the equality gap is getting worse in unemployment, building wealth and savings reversing many of the employment and income gains made in the 1990s. The median net worth for blacks is 10 [times] less than it is for whites.” Full Story: http://www.frostillustrated.com/news/2005/0504/Front_Page/003.html