Undeniable progress for African Americans
Apr 5, 2019, 6:16 AM
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Radical activists and left-leaning media paint a one-dimensional portrait of Black America, showing African Americans as locked in poverty and hopelessness, and falling further and further behind their white counterparts. But the latest numbers from the Census Bureau expose a dramatically different picture.
As recently as 1970, only one-third of black American adults had ever graduated from high school; in 2018, the number skyrocketed to 88 percent, virtually identical to the 89 percent for white adults.
Even more amazing, in 1970, only 4.5 percent of blacks had graduated from a four-year college, while today the number is 25 percent — and rising fast. In the last 50 years, the percentage of black college graduates went up more than 500 percent — well ahead of the 300 percent increase for white people.
Of course, inequalities remain in our society, but no one should deny or ignore the spectacular recent progress of African Americans.