The New African American Inequality

The interpretation of twentieth-century African American inequality remains fraught with controversy. Have barriers to African American economic progress crumbled or remained stubbornly resistant to fundamental change? Has the story been similar for women and men? What mechanisms have fostered or retarded change? Those questions matter not only because they cut so close to the heart of twentieth-century American history but also because they bear on important public-policy choices in the present. In this article, we rely primarily on census data assembled in the University of Minnesota's Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (ipums) to examine the controversial topic of black inequality. Our answer to the questions the data pose does not support either the optimistic or the pessimistic version of African American history. But it does not come down in an illusory middle, either. Rather, it recasts the issue by arguing that after World War II the nature of black inequality altered fundamentally. Inequality, we contend, worked differently at the end of the twentieth century than at its start or midpoint. At the start of the twentieth century, pervasive, overt racial discrimination barred blacks from most jobs, denied them equal education, and disenfranchised them politically. During the second half of the twentieth century, slowly and sometimes in the face of violent opposition, the situation of African Americans changed dramatically. Courts and Congress—prodded by a massive social movement, national embarassment on the world stage during the Cold War, and the electoral concerns of urban politicians—extended political and civil rights. Affirmative action and new “welfare rights” contributed to the extension of social citizenship—guarantees of food, shelter, medical care, and education. By the end of the century, legal and formal barriers that had excluded blacks from most institutions and from the most favorable labor market positions had largely disappeared. Black poverty had plummeted, and black political and economic achievements were undeniable.1