Why Did Racial Progress Stall in America?The answer may show us the path out of our fractured and polarized present.By Shaylyn Romney Garrett and Robert D. Putnam

Robert D. Putnam is a political scientist. Shaylyn Romney Garrett is a writer. Dec. 4, 2020Students registering to vote, Chatham County Courthouse in Savannah, Ga., 1963.Credit…Fred Baldwin

In the popular narrative of American history, Black Americans made essentially no measurable progress toward equality with white Americans until the lightning-bolt changes of the civil rights revolution. If that narrative were charted along the course of the 20th century, it would be a flat line for decades, followed by a sharp, dramatic upturn toward equality beginning in the 1960s: the shape of a hockey stick.

In many ways, this hockey stick image of racial inequality is accurate. Until the banning of de jure segregation and discrimination, very little progress was made in many domains: representation in politics and mainstream media, job quality and job security, access to professional schools and careers or toward residential integration.

However, on a number of other measures, the shape of the trend is surprisingly different. In our book, “The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again,” we examine century-long data, tracking outcomes by race in health, education, income, wealth and voting. What we found surprised us.In terms of material well-being, Black Americans were moving toward parity with white Americans well before the victories of the civil rights era. What’s more, after the passage of civil rights legislation, those trends toward racial parity slowed, stopped and even reversed. Understanding how and why not only reveals why America is so fractured today, but illuminates the path forward, toward a more perfect union.

Northern Comment – This is a fascinating article about the trajectory of black rights and racist resistance over the past 100 years. As a taster it is good enough to have persuaded me to order the book even though it has 440 pages.