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2024 A National Urban League Publication stateofblackamerica.org The Civil Rights Act of 1964 60 Years LaterPUBLISHER Marc H. Morial MANAGING DIRECTOR Tara Thomas EXECUTIVE EDITOR Teresa Candori RESEARCH PARTNERS Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law NAACP Legal Defense Fund EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Michael Tomlin-Crutchfield CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rhonda Spears Bell DESIGN Untuck 03 About State of Black America ® 04 Understanding the 2024 Equality Index ™ 06 From the President’s Desk 08 Overview of the 2024 Equality Index ™ 10 The Fight for a More Just Nation 11 A Land Divided Over Liberty and Justice for All 14 America’s Magna Carta 16 The Attack on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 18 A Coordinated Response 20 The Biden Progress Report 24 Our Contributors 27 National Urban League Affiliates CONTENTS About the National Urban League The National Urban League is a historic civil rights and urban advocacy organization. Driven to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and justice for our nation’s marginalized populations, the National Urban League works toward economic empowerment and the elevation of the standard of living in historically underserved urban communities. Founded in 1910 and headquartered in New York City, the National Urban League has improved the lives of more than three million people each year nationwide through direct service programs run by 92 affiliates serving 300 communities in 37 states and the District of Columbia. The National Urban League also conducts public policy research and advocacy work from its Washington, D.C., bureau. The National Urban League is a BBB-accredited organization and has earned a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, placing it in the top 10% of all U.S. charities for adhering to good governance, fiscal responsibility, and other best practices.About State of Black America ® Since its first appearance in 1976 under the stewardship of the late Mr. Vernon E. Jordan Jr., the organization’s fifth president, the State of Black America ® remains one of the most highly-anticipated benchmarks and sources for thought leadership around racial equality in America. The report explores the inequities across America’s economics, employment, education, health, housing, criminal justice, and civic participation systems through research and the words of our contributors. Each edition contains penetrating commentary and insightful analysis from recognized authorities and leading figures in politics, the corporate and tech sectors, the nonprofit arena, academia, and popular culture. In the 48th edition of the report, we’ve decided to reflect on a landmark piece of legislation that transformed everyday life in America and gave us a reason to create this report: the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For Black Americans, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first time that the United States government honored the promises in the Declaration of Independence and addressed the racial caste system that had been protected for centuries by unjust laws and systemic racism. The law, in many ways, answered the calls of March on Washington by banning discrimination in the workplace, in our housing system, and in programs funded by the government, and marked the death of the Jim Crow South. Sixty years later, the fight for equality is far from over. We have a Supreme Court that has dismantled Affirmative Action, threatening equitable access to higher education and diversity and equity initiatives that make our workplaces safer and more accessible for people from all backgrounds. States across the country are dictating who gets to vote in elections by enforcing ID laws and requirements that make it harder for marginalized people to participate in the Democratic process. And we have a Congress that allows extremist members to hold our country hostage by refusing to pass critical spending bills unless their anti-civil rights agenda is met. This movement has infiltrated our courts and state houses, threatening civil rights at every level of government. Our contributing authors use their experiences as elected officials, civil rights advocates, and esteemed academics to paint a picture of American life before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as they analyze how each title created the country we know today. They also unpack the threats to the freedoms protected by the law and share their perspective on strengthening civil rights protections for the 21st century. It is not the time to be silent. We cannot stand by while this law is stripped of its power by those who oppose progress. This fight is one for our future, our legacy, and the soul of this country. We urge you to join us in it today. Head to the State of Black America website to access the 2024 State of Black America suite of offerings—including author essays, data, expert analysis, and a ready-for- download version of this executive summary. SCAN TO READ THE FULL REPORT. 3 stateofblackamerica.org NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 3Understanding the 2024 Equality Index ™ Why does the National Urban League publish an Equality Index? Economic empowerment is the central theme of the National Urban League’s mission. The Equality Index gives us a way to document progress toward this mission for Black Americans relative to whites. What is the Equality Index trying to do? The Equality Index uses pie charts to show how well Black Americans are doing in comparison to whites when it comes to their economic status, their health, their education, social justice, and civic engagement. The Equality Index measures the share of that pie which Black Americans get. Whites are used as the benchmark because the history of race in America has created advantages for whites that continue to persist in many of the outcomes being measured. The 2024 Equality Index of Black America is 75.7%. What does that mean? That means that rather than having a whole pie (100%), which would mean full equality with whites in 2024, African Americans are missing about 24% of the pie. How is the Equality Index calculated? The categories that make up the Equality Index are: economics, health, education, social justice and civic engagement. In each category, we use nationally representative statistics to calculate a sub-index that captures how well Black Americans are doing relative to whites. Each category is weighted based on the importance that we give to each. The weighted average of all five categories is then calculated to get the total Equality Index. Is it possible to see how well Black Americans are doing in each of the categories? Yes. We show this in the tables included with the Equality Index. We estimate an index for each category that can be interpreted in the same way as the total Equality Index. So, an index of 66% for the economics category for 2024 means that Black Americans are missing over a third of the economics mini-pie. Figure 1 summarizes the total 2024 Equality Index and the sub-index in each category. Is it possible to see how well Black Americans are doing over time? Yes. The National Urban League has published the Equality Index of Black America and all the variables used to calculate it since 2005. It doesn’t look like there’s been much improvement in the Equality Index. What’s the point? The Equality Index is made up of a lot of different parts. Improvements in one area are sometimes offset by losses in another area, leaving the overall index unchanged. Change often happens slowly. The Equality Index offers solid evidence of just how slowly it happens, making the index an indispensable tool for shaping the policies needed in the ongoing fight against inequality. Not all Black Americans are doing poorly and not all whites are doing well. Why doesn’t the Equality Index capture class differences? The Equality Index was created to capture racial inequality. Most of the data points are reported as averages for Black Americans and whites. An average is the easiest way to summarize a large amount of information, but can mask class differences within each group. While the Equality Index does not detail class differences, it does highlight regional differences in racial inequality through our rankings of metro area unemployment and income inequality (not included this year but available for prior years). 4 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA ® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years Later75.7% 75.7% The 2024 Black–White Index Key / Weighted Index Categories ● Economics 30% ● Health 25% ● Education 25% ● Social Justice 10% ● Civic Engagement 10% Figure 1. Black–White Equality Index Broken Down by Category Equality Index Breakdown Economics 65.6% Health 88.6% Education 74.8% Social Justice 55.7% Civic Engagement 95.6% NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 5FROM THE President’s Desk A more abiding commitment to freedom. A more constant pursuit of justice. A deeper respect for human dignity. These were the promises of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as expressed by President Lyndon Johnson when he signed the bill into law. This year marks the 60th anniversary of that landmark legislation, but the journey toward racial justice in the United States is older than the nation itself, and nowhere near complete. No issue in history has met with more resistance in the United States Congress than civil rights. The first Civil Rights Act, which established full citizenship for formerly enslaved Americans, was vetoed twice by President Andrew Jackson. Congress finally overrode the veto with a two-thirds majority in each chamber, allowing the bill that supported the 13th Amendment to become law. Civil Rights Act of 1875, providing equal access to “accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement,” took five years to pass. It was taken up as a memorial after its author, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, passed away, and only after it was stripped of a provision to desegregate schools. The Act was poorly enforced, and the Supreme Court overturned it in 1883. For the next eight decades, Congress failed to enact a single measure to enforce civil rights. The next one to pass, a watered- down voting rights bill in 1957, was more notable for Senator Strom Thurmond’s record-setting 24-hour, 18-minute filibuster than for anything it accomplished. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also set a filibuster record, proceeding to a vote only after a 60-day debate. Resistance to racial justice persisted—and still persists—in the years following 1964, but for the first time in the nation’s history, the federal government at last had the tools to enforce the principles of racial equality and inclusion. In the wake of the uprising triggered by George Floyd’s murder in 2020, the nation now finds itself swept into a backlash that presents the gravest threat to the Civil Rights Act in its relatively short history. The Civil Rights Act has been transformative in changing American life in a material way. Doors have been opened, and new access has been achieved. But the promise of full equality, as this year’s Equality Index indicates, is still elusive. Our “abiding commitment to freedom” is undermined by discriminatory voter ID laws, gerrymandering, the shuttering of polling places in predominantly minority neighborhoods, limits on early voting, and reckless purging of voter rolls. Our “pursuit of justice” is derailed by persistent racism in policing and sentencing, the dismantling of diversity and inclusion policies in employment and education, and lack of access to financial services, housing and healthcare. Our “respect for human dignity” is called into question by an unraveling social safety net, a poverty-level federal minimum wage, and other economic policies that uplift the wealthy at the expense of working families. Marc H. Morial PRESIDENT & CEO, NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 6 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA ® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years LaterDr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “second emancipation.” The first emancipation freed us from slavery. The second, from legal segregation. Today, we must strive for a third emancipation, uprooting the deep racial divisions that remain embedded in our institutions so we can live according to the ideals the Civil Rights Act represents. 7 NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUEOverview of the 2024 Equality Index ™ 75.7%73.9% 20222024 AN INTRODUCTION by Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe, Ph.D., PRESIDENT & FOUNDER, THE WOMEN’S INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE, EQUITY AND RACE It has been 20 years since the first Equality Index was created under the guidance of Marc Moral and the leadership of the National Urban League in 2004. The intent of the Equality Index, then and now, is to “…compare the conditions between Whites and Blacks in America.” The data in this year’s index captures the progress of Black Americans since the year 2000 and recognizes the 60th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For centuries during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, in addition to not being considered or counted as Americans, Blacks were not seen as human. It wasn’t until 1787, with the passage of the 3/5ths Compromise, that Black Americans were counted at all, making up 3/5 of a person for purposes of taxation and state representation in Congress. In today’s terms, that would be an Index value of 0.60. The 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865 to correct this injustice in the Constitution. However, it was not sufficient to eradicate the structural racism that underpins the lived experiences of African Americans. Even the Civil Rights Act of 1964—targeting specific policies and practices that hindered African Americans and others from full participation in America’s economic and social systems—did not raise the Equality Index to 1, full equality with Whites. Today, 237 years after the passage of the 3/5ths Compromise, the 2024 Equality Index value is 0.76. While that is greater than 0.60 (the 3/5 of person value), it is still short of full equality. This year is the 60th Anniversary of the passing of the Civil Rights Act—a historically significant moment to discuss the Equality Inequality Index and the progress African Americans have made given the seven Titles of the Act. TITLE I: Discriminatory Voting Tactics Title I barred unequal application of state voter registration requirements for federal elections. The Civic Engagement sub- index is divided into four categories—the Democratic Process (0.40), Volunteerism (0.30), Collective Bargaining (0.20), and Government Employment (0.10). Of these categories, the democratic process is directly affected by Title I. In 2020, 69 percent of Black Americans were registered to vote, an increase from 64.3 percent in 2000. Moreover, 62.6 percent of Black Americans voted in 2020, compared to 54.1 percent in 2000. The index for the percentage of Actual Voters was 90 percent in 2000, which increased to 92 percent in 2020. There was a slight improvement in the Registered Voters index, 93 percent in 2020, up from 92 percent in 2000. It is important to note that 2000 was an election year in which the presidential election (Bush vs. Gore) was so close that it resulted in a Supreme Court intervention. In contrast, the 2020 election (Biden vs. Trump) resulted in storming of the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election. Midterm elections have lower registration and voting rates than general elections. In 2022, the percentage of Blacks registered to vote was 60.2 percent, down from 62.4 percent in 2002. The percentage of Blacks who voted in 2022 was 42.3 percent, down from 54 percent in 2002. Similarly, the Actual Voters index was also 84 percent in 2022, down from 95 percent in 2002, a decrease of 11 percentage points. TITLE IV: Desegregation of Public Schools and Colleges Title IV authorized the U.S. Attorney General to investigate equal protection denials and take legal action to enforce Brown v. Board of Education; it also allowed the Secretary of Education to provide funding for desegregation efforts. Title IV is the mechanism to achieve growth in the Education sub-index, which has eight categories The 2024 Equality Index of Black America stands at 75.7%, an improvement of 1.8 percentage points from the 2022 index of 73.9%. 8 2024 STATE OF BLACK AMERICA ® The Civil Rights Act of 1964: 60 Years Latermeasuring key educational factors, from enrollment to student- achievement risk factors. The Education sub-index is 8.5 percentage points higher in 2024 (74.8 percent) than in 2000 (66.3 percent). It has been seventy years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that “separate but equal” education was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, today, Black students are still more likely to attend schools with less qualified teachers. In 2023, Black students were more likely to have uncertified teachers (4.9 percent) compared to white students (2.1 percent). Additionally, Black students were more likely to have inexperienced teachers (less than three years of experience) compared with white students (15.2 percent vs. 8.9 percent). But there is good news. The percentage of Blacks who dropped out of high school dropped from 13.1 percent in 2000 to 3.9 percent in 2024. The index for this metric was 113 percent in 2024 compared to 53 percent. Moreover, decreasing the percentage of Black high school dropouts positively affects college enrollment. In 2024, the college enrollment gap between Black and White men is only 2.4 percentage points, and Black women have a higher college enrollment percentage than Black or White men. However, a higher enrollment rate for Black women should not be interpreted as Black women are the most educated group. Enrollment in college does not mean college completion. TITLE V: Reauthorization of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is an independent, bipartisan federal agency created to inform national civil rights policy development, enforce federal civil rights laws, and investigate allegations of voter suppression. In November 2023, the commission began investigating the federal government’s role in collecting data to identify racial and ethnic disparities in violent crime victimization. Such investigations directly affect the Social Justice sub-index, which has two components— equality before the law (.70) and victimization and mental anguish (.30). Since 2000, the Social Justice sub-index has doubled, from 26.2 percent in 2000 to 55.7 percent in 2024—noteworthy progress. The incarceration rate (prisoners per 100,000) for Blacks was 3,662 in 2000 (the index was 13 percent). In 2024, the incarceration rate was 558, 6.5 times smaller, a 29 percent index. An increase in this index means fewer Black prisoners are incarcerated for every White prisoner. The incarceration rate is a good proxy for equality under the law. The decrease in the number of victims aged 12 or older of violent crimes was significant enough for Blacks to go from an index of 50 percent in 2000 to 110 percent in 2024. Black youth are now less likely to be victims of violent crimes than Whites. TITLE VI: Discrimination by Recipients of Federal Financial Assistance Under Title VI, Blacks gained equal access to federally funded hospitals for health care. Section 1557 requires any healthcare provider receiving funding to treat all patients. Although less than 1, the 2024 Health sub-index is 88.6 percent, a slight increase from 87.9 percent in 2000. A historical view of the health sub-index shows improvements in Age- Adjusted Death Rates (AADR). The 2000 AADR index was 50 percent— meaning that even after adjusting mortality rates for age, Blacks were twice as likely to die as Whites. However, the 2024 AADR index for Blacks was 120 percent, which means that Blacks were less likely to die than Whites. However, despite this progress, the life expectancy of Blacks is still lower than that of Whites by almost 5.5 years. TITLE VII: Discrimination in Employment Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 opened employment opportunities for Black Americans, particularly those residing in the de jure Jim Crow South. It outlawed employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin by businesses affecting commerce with at least twenty-five employees. However, despite some progress, economic inequality between Black and White households persists decades later. For example, after adjusting for inflation, Black men earned $91 less per week, and Black women made $72 less per week in 2024 compared to 2000. In 2000, Black men earned 75 cents for every dollar earned by a White man; by 2024, this figure had decreased to 71 cents. Similarly, Black women made 84 cents for every dollar earned by a White woman in 2024, slightly less than the 86 cents per dollar earned in 2000. The median household income for Black Americans increased from $28,700 ($51,422.96 in 2023 dollars) in 2000 to $51,374 in 2024 ($54,812 in 2023 dollars), indicating a positive trend. However, the median income index, which measures the income gap between Black and white households, only increased from 63 percent in 2000 to 64 percent in 2024. Hence, Black households had 64 cents for every White household dollar. Increased earnings and tax credits aimed at helping families reduced the number of Black families in poverty in 2024 relative to 2000. All of the Poverty sub-indices were below 40 percent in 2000. In 2024, these sub-indices were all above 40 percent. The indices for the percentage of Blacks under 18 years of age and 18–64 years of age living in poverty both increased by 31 and 29 percentage points, respectively. Furthermore, the homeownership index decreased from 64 percent in 2000 to 61 percent in 2024, while the wealth index remained at 16 percent. The persistent economic inequality can be traced to the stubborn unemployment gap. In 2000, the unemployment rate for Black Americans was 7.6 percent, which was more than twice the unemployment rate of white Americans (3.5 percent.) In 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Black unemployment was 8.3 percent compared to 4.4 percent for White Americans. Six months after the pandemic “ended” (November 2023), White unemployment decreased to 3.3 percent, while Black unemployment remained higher at 5.8 percent. January 2024, the most recent unemployment data, reports that 3.4 percent of Whites are unemployed compared to 5.3 percent of Blacks. The Economic index was 66 percent in 2024, up from 59.8 percent in 2000. This 5.8 percentage point increase resulted from better wealth measures, a lower unemployment and household income gap, and reduced poverty rates. Conclusion The Civil Rights Act of 1964 played a pivotal role in eliminating legislation and policies that obstructed the full participation of Black Americans in the country’s economic and social activities. It led to better employment opportunities, more equitable access to education, and fairer treatment in the healthcare and judicial systems. The racial-equity progress chronicled in the State of Black of America Equality Index that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been chipping away at structural racism, but gaps still remain. How long will Black Americans wait until the Equality Index is 1? NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 9Next >