In Baltimore and Across the Country, Black Faces in High Places Haven’t Helped Average Black People

by UB Center for Urban Studies · 10/23/2016

Electing African-American political leaders has done little to alleviate the suffering of Black America.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of many of the most significant events of the Black Freedom Struggle of the 1960s. Two years ago, we celebrated the March on Washington; last year we recognized the 1964 Civil Rights Act that ended Jim Crow apartheid in the South. This year, we have already seen commemorations of the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and summer’s end will see the 50th anniversary of the Watts Rebellion in Los Angeles. Of course, the country had seen rebellions in Rochester, New York, Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey, to a name a few cities, in 1964, but up to that point, Watts was unprecedented in its scale, damage, deaths and sheer ferocity in the summer of 1965. The uprising in South Central Los Angeles represented a stark conclusion to the nonviolent phase of the movement.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor April 29, 2015

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