Any racial progress since King?

Has the US reduced racial tension over the past fifty years?  Some say yes; some say no.

Ask a thousand blacks and you might get a thousand different answers.  A black Iowa doctor might answer with a resounding yes; an incarcerated black in a Mississippi prison might answer with a resounding no.

Ask a thousand whites the same question and you might receive two thousand stupidities.  A seventy-five year old Iowa farmer might answer much different than a twenty year old Des Moines youth who went to school with blacks.  Even experts disagree how much racial progress has been made, if any.

Significant progress in civil rights, but little progress in economic rights.  A person could even quote Martin Luther King against himself; in his famous 1963, I have a Dream speech, he was reasonably optimistic.  This speech was quickly followed up with civil rights and voting rights legislation.  So this is evidence of progress.

But the very same Martin Luther King in December, 1967, said he saw his own dream turn into a nightmare because he saw poor blacks living on a island of poverty in the midst of the nation brimming with prosperity.  So he saw little evidence of economic progress for his fellow blacks.

Personally, I would say signs of real deep progress are few and far between.  There has been more continuity between systems of oppression than there has been abolishment of systems of oppression.

I wish to stress this is not due primarily to the failure of black leaders; we could have had a dozen Martin Luther Kings, a dozen John Lewis, a dozen John Perkins without much more progress.  The real question is where were white leaders on justice; sitting comfortably in white suburbs or busy rebuilding black ghettos?  We need courageous white pastors, white churches who move beyond arrogant self righteousness to repentance, restitution and repair.