How far were the lives of African Americans changed by the civil rights advances of the 1960s?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a major step forward for African Americans.  It ended segregation in public places and banned racial discrimination, leading to significant changes in attitudes and acceptance.  For example, while in 1958, 44% of whites said they would move if a Black family moved next door, by 1998 that figure had dropped to 1%, betokening a lasting impact on how people thought about race in America. 

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also brought electoral equality, especially in the South, where Black voter registration more than doubled (and rose from almost tenfold in Mississippi) in the 1960s.  The number of Black officials in local government in the South increased fourfold, and there was a doubling of government spending in Black communities 1962-80.  However, a white voter ‘counter-mobilisation’ seems to have limited the electoral impact, and while the Act did not lead to a significant increase in African American representation in Congress.  Black voter turnout dropped after the initial surge … showing perhaps a disillusionment with politics. 

Housing segregation was officially banned by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but de facto residential segregation persisted, with many Black Americans were still concentrated in deprived, inner-city neighbourhoods.  This was partly because, as soon as African Americans could afford to move out of the city, they did so, leaving behind less affluent Black communities.  On a positive note, the ‘Great Society’ programme saw housing quality for African Americans improve dramatically, with basic amenities such as an indoor toilet becoming commonplace. 

Education saw some positive changes after Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: public schools became more equal in terms of resources and teacher pay, and affirmative action saw a 550% rise 1962-2019 in Black Americans going to college, and significant increases in Black Americans entering professions such as medicine and law.  However, schools remained segregated in practice, since Black children from Black neighbourhoods all attended the same local schools.  Worryingly also, despite affirmative action programmes like Head Start, educational attainment for African Americans continued to lag behind that of white students, and the inner-city location of many Black families seemed to be a more significant factor in educational outcomes, which the Civil Rights advances were unable to correct. 

In employment, the Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act led to some progress, with Black wages as a proportion of white wages improving 1960-80 – from 61% to 74% (men) and from 61% to 98% for women.  However, Black unemployment remained consistently double that of whites, with large numbers of African American men dropping out of the workforce altogether.  Thus, while there were opportunities for some, systemic issues like lack of education/skills or criminal records seemed to be preventing poor African Americans taking advantage of the improvement in their civil rights. 

In healthcare, the 1963 Simkins v.  Moses H.  Cone Memorial Hospital case ended segregated health facilities.  However, by 1985 the infant death rate of Blacks remained double that of whites, the life span of Blacks was about 7 years shorter than that of whites, and the gap between Black and white male mortality, 53% in 1940, had only fallen to 46%.  So the changes in healthcare access did not translate into equal health outcomes, showing the limits of legislative reform. 

The percentage of Black families living below the poverty line fell dramatically in the 1960s, from 55% in 1960 to less than 35% in 1970, thanks in part to the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act and the Great Society programs, but progress stalled after 1970.  By the end of the century, average Black family wealth had fallen back to one-seventh of white family wealth, and poverty remained in inner-city areas … suggesting that factors such as family structure and inner-city location were critical in determining economic outcomes, rather than inequalities in civil rights. 

Thus, as Glenn Loury concluded in 1985: “not all problems of Blacks are due to discrimination, and that they cannot be remedied through civil rights strategies or racial politics”.  While the Civil Rights advances of the 1960s brought legal and voting equality, significantly changed social attitudes, and allowed 30% of African Americans to become middle class and move to suburbia, they did not give financial or economic equality to large numbers of African Americans, who continued to live in Black inner-city communities, where they experienced disproportionately low educational attainment, reduced employment prospects, disproportionate ill-health, and higher levels of poverty.