Apartheid. USA 1988

January 14, 1988:

The National Urban League issued its annual report, ‘The State of Black America.’ The League's president, John E Jacob announced that the economic and social status of blacks in America did not significantly improve in the last decade and may actually have worsened. While America

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was riding an economic boom, black poverty rose and ‘we have slipped further back from our goal of parity with white citizens,’ Mr Jacob said. The report noted that the average family income of blacks in the 1980's has been 16 476 dollars a year, against 17 765 dollars in the 1970's. Inequities in education and job opportunities, the report said, contributes to despair among blacks, especially the young. But the researchers noted also some gains, mainly by upper-income blacks and in mobilizing black organizations to help resolve some critical problems. The Reagan Administration, Mr Jacob said, had ignored black problems by reducing job-training programs by no less than 70 percent and pushing for cuts in housing and other programs that help the poor. The Reagan policies created a significant contribution to furthering a climate in which racism has been allowed to fester and grow. They have liberated people to be discriminatory in their behavior as well as their attitudes, and therefore, I think they have had a profoundly negative impact on the progression that had taken place, Mr Jacob said.^202.

202. The New York Times, from a report by Lena Williams