2024 Report

The Civil Rights Acts of 1964: 60 Years Later

Since its first appearance in 1976 under the stewardship of the late Mr. Vernon E. Jordan Jr., the organization’s fifth president, the State of Black America® remains one of the most highly-anticipated benchmarks and sources for thought leadership around racial equality in America.

In the 48th edition of the report, we’ve decided to reflect on a landmark piece of legislation that transformed everyday life in America and gave us a reason to create this report: the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

For Black America, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first time that the United States government addressed the racial caste system that had been protected for centuries by unjust laws and systemic brutality of nonwhite people in this country.

The law, in many ways, answered the calls for jobs and freedom in the March on Washington by banning discrimination in the workplace, in our housing system, and programs funded by the government, and marked the death of the Jim Crow South

Sixty years later, the fight for equality is far from over.

2024 release

Executive Summary

The National Urban League's annual publication, now in its 48th edition, is the highly anticipated source for thought leaders focusing on racial equality in America. The 2024 State of Black America report examines the impact of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, marking the first significant effort by the U.S. to address the racial caste system. Sixty years later, the publication highlights that the struggle for equality persists, emphasizing the ongoing challenges and progress made in the pursuit of a more just and equitable future.

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Contributed by -

Secretary Jennifer Granholm

Secretary U.S. Department of Energy

Every day we are reminded that climate change is the single greatest threat facing humanity. While some choose to see this as a problem for future generations, the impacts of the climate crisis are already piling up for America's low-income families and people of color.

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Contributed by -

Angela Tuck

SENIOR EDITOR OF THE INTELLIGENCE PROJECT SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise

-      Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
 

When Pastor Eric S.C. Manning heard there had been a shooting at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., one of his first thoughts was of his friend, Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

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Contributed by -

Thomas Beauford

PRESIDENT BUFFALO URBAN LEAGUE

An act of domestic terrorism forever changed our community on May 14th, 2022. A shooter opened fire at a supermarket in a predominately Black neighborhood several hours from where he lived. This horrific attack killed ten individuals, wounded three, injured several others, and traumatized our community and the world. This heinous event reminded us that hate-fueled violence still exists in our society, and extremists are here to destroy anything that is just or equal.

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Contributed by -

Bishop Garrison

FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE AND FELLOW NATIONAL SECURITY INSTITUTION, GEORGE MASON SCHOOL OF LAW

Rhetoric doesn’t fight wars, but it does start them. The world has witnessed this play out in real-time during the heinous Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Nazism found its way into the narrative.

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Marc Morial

PRESIDENT & CEO NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

At least three members of the current U.S. Congress have promoted a conspiracy theory centered on a cabal of Satan-worshiping, cannibalistic, child abusers that includes Democratic politicians, Hollywood actors and business tycoons.

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Dr. Robert Bullard

PROFESSOR OF URBAN PLANNING & ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY, DIRECTOR OF THE BULLARD CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE JUSTICE TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY

Environmental justice embraces the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental, health, employment, education, housing, transportation, energy, and civil rights laws. This principle was largely absent from the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 where the modern environmental movement was born. Environmental justice languished during the “Dark Ages” of the 1970s and early 1980s.

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Maya Henson Carey

RESEARCH ANALYST SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

In the nation's collective memory of the days following the 1954 landmark—unanimous—U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in public schools, a rallying cry for parental rights echoes.

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Contributed by -

Marc H. Morial

PRESIDENT & CEO NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

Transitioning the U.S. economy to renewable energy is perhaps the greatest wealth-creation opportunity since the Industrial Revolution. Over the next two decades, American companies plan to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in new wind, solar, and battery storage projects to replace aging, expensive, and heavily polluting fossil fuel plants, and provide power for an increasingly electrified economy with a growing fleet of electric vehicles.  

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Contributed by -

SUSAN CORKE

DIRECTOR SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER, INTELLIGENCE PROJECT

MICHAEL LIEBERMAN

SENIOR POLICY COUNSEL SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

On May 14, 2022, a white supremacist attacked and killed 10 people, all of them Black, at Topps Supermarket in Buffalo, New York. From our reporting it was clear that the shooter became radicalized online and was inspired by other acts of white supremacist violence and by the January 6 insurrection.

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2024 release

Equality Index

Economic empowerment is the central theme of the National Urban League’s mission. The Equality Index gives us a way to document progress toward this mission for Black Americans relative to whites. 

It uses pie charts to show how well Black Americans are doing in comparison to whites when it comes to their economic status, health, education, social justice, and civic engagement. The Equality Index measures the share of that pie that Black Americans get. Whites are used as the benchmark because the history of race in America has created advantages for whites that continue to persist in many of the outcomes being measured. 

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On January 20, 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.

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Project CODE's (Collaborative Organizations to End Domestic Extremism) partners congratulate the National Urban League's legacy of releasing The State of Black America report since 1976 and bringing prescient issues to the public square!

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We stand at a pivotal moment in American history to make transformational impacts that will accelerate the clean energy transition, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and deliver economic-focused restorative justice to Black, Brown, and underserved communities.  These communities have been disproportionately impacted by our nation’s energy system for decades and remain the most concerned about the climate imperative.

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