SAVE OUR CITIES: POWERING THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION 9 NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUEBY VALERIE RAWLSTON WILSON, PH.D.This year marks the 50th anniversary of several milestones in the long pursuit of racial equality in America. Fifty years ago, in April of 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated while in Memphis to support the city’s striking sanitation workers. Given Dr. King’s prominence as a leader in the civil rights movement, to many, his assassination felt like a direct attack against Black America, leading to an outbreak of riots in cities across the country. That same year, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, outlawing housing discrimination, was signed into law and the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, better known as the Kerner Commission, delivered a bold and profound report to President Lyndon B. Johnson. After spending several months gathering data and directly witnessing conditions in urban America, the report concluded that “white racism” was to blame for the “pervasive discrimination in employment, education and housing.” These conditions, together with widespread mistreatment and abuse of Black citizens at the hands of the police, were cited as causes of poverty and civil unrest in segregated Black communities. While a lot has changed for African Americans and other people of color in this country since 1968, many things have not. Even after the historic two-term election of the first African-American president of the United States, full racial equality remains a distant goal. Further, progress toward this goal must currently be pursued under the national leadership of a president whose rhetoric and actions have done more to fan the flames of racism and divisiveness rather than inspire greater equality. As the National Urban League continues to press the case for closing the divide in economic opportunity, education, health, social justice and civic engagement, the 2018 National Urban League Equality Index is the 14th edition of this critical quantitative tool for tracking Black–white racial equality in America and the ninth edition of the Hispanic–White Index. In addition to these national indices for America’s largest racial and ethnic groups, this year’s Equality Index also includes a Digital Inclusion Index that measures how African Americans are faring in the digital economy.
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