Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the National Urban League released its annual report on the state of racial inequality in the country.
Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said the biggest takeaway is that “the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has made enormous progress, but not enough progress.”
The report highlights persistent racial inequalities in many areas, including education, incarceration, income, homeownership and unemployment. Many of these same discrepancies occur in Massachusetts.
“Just because we are generally a Democratic state as far as the composition of the legislature... that does not mean that they are enacting all of the legislation that gets us to a better place,” said Rahsaan Hall, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, the local chapter of the National Urban League.
When it comes to education, the report found that the dropout rate for Black students has dropped dramatically since 2000, from 13.1% to 3.9%, a huge improvement nationwide. But it also found that Black students were more likely than white students to be taught by inexperienced or uncertified teachers.
Education inequalities persist in Massachusetts, where just under 10% of public school students are Black. Black students score lower on standardized MCAS tests than white students in all grades in which the test is administered. The statewide Black student dropout rate is 2.8%, compared to 1.3% for white students — though both figures are lower than the national averages.
Hall pointed to school funding as another example of inequity.
“The schools that have higher percentages of students of color, Black students in particular, are not funded at the same rate as districts that have a higher percentage of white students,” he said.
Hall noted that inequality extends to discipline. “Black students are still just disciplined at rates much higher than white students,” he said.
A 2024 report on incarceration in Massachusetts from Boston Indicators and MassINC found that incarceration rates have declined sharply since 2018, but more drastically for white residents, leading to an increase in racial disparities in incarceration.
The Urban League report found that Black Americans’ median incomes increased from 2000 to 2024, but the racial income gap remains large: “Black households had 64 cents for every White household dollar,” according to the report.
In line with the national trend, Black residents of Massachusetts have higher unemployment rates than white residents. For the last quarter of 2023, the statewide unemployment rate was 4.7% for Black residents compared to 2.6% for whites. Both numbers are lower than the national average, but the racial disparity is larger in Massachusetts: Black residents are 81% more likely to be unemployed than white residents, compared to a 56% discrepancy nationally.
“The state government really needs to up its game,” said Hall.
