With Jim Crow segregation, voting discrimination and
rampant joblessness not yet in rear view, 1963 was a tough time to be black in
America.
In January, Alabama governor George C. Wallace would
defiantly proclaim in his inaugural speech: "Segregation now, segregation
tomorrow, and segregation forever!," sending a wave of intolerance across
the south that would lead to the death of four young girls at Birmingham's 16th
Street Baptist Church and the shooting death of civil rights activist Medgar
Evers at his home in Jackson, Mississippi later that year.
And though there
were bright spots -- African-American student Harvey Gantt entering Clemson University in South Carolina, the last U.S. state
to hold out against racial integration, and James
Meredith becoming the first black person to graduate from Ole Miss -- it would be a while before true
change would come (as soul singer Sam Cooke's 1963-inspired hit proclaimed).
But has it?
By some
estimates, no, with African Americans only barely better off in
the war on poverty and imprisonment that pervades the news today. By other
summations, the black community is leaps and bounds beyond where it was back in
1963.
As we acknowledge
the anniversary of the 1963 March On Washington For Jobs & Freedom, a rally with
parallel issues in mind, the Huffington Post has laid out a look at black life
then and now to help you decide.
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