Black progress

Watching the chaos at the southern border is mindful of the old cold war days. People from around the world were entering the lottery hoping to win passage to the United States and meanwhile the Soviets had built a wall to keep people from leaving. Nothing has changed. People who are unhappy see the US as their best hope for a brighter future. At the same time many people living in the land of the free are complaining that they are living in a white supremacist country where they have limited opportunities. Here is some data that is rarely published. In 1940, 60 percent of employed black women worked as domestic servants; today the number is down to 2.2 percent, while 60 percent hold white- collar jobs. In 1958, 44 percent of whites said they would move if a black family became their next door neighbor; today the figure is 1 percent. In 1964, the year the great Civil Rights Act was passed, only 18 percent of whites claimed to have a friend who was black; today 86 percent say they do, while 87 percent of blacks assert they have white friends. 40 percent of African Americans now consider themselves members of the middle class. Forty-two percent own their own homes, a figure that rises to 75 percent if we look just at black married couples. There is much room for improvement but much has been accomplished.