MLK – Changes in African American People Since 1964

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In noting Martin Luther King day, here are data* about African Americans relating to differences between 1964 when Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and 2020 in the percentage of African Americans completing high school, the number of African American college students, and the percentage of citizen population voting in the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. Day has been a U.S. federal holiday since 1986. The violent handling during the Spring of 1965 of protestors he was with over busing segregation by white segregationists and the police in Selma Alabama led to the passage of Voting Rights Act that August. AutoInformed still believes that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” as Dr. King said. 

Martin Luther King was murdered, possibly, by known-racist and escaped-convict James Earl Ray on 4 April 1968 while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis (Ray eventually withdrew his confession). King had traveled to Tennessee to support a sanitation workers’ strike. Subsequent Court decisions – regrettably including  not unexpectedly from the Supreme Court, which also brought us the Dred Scott decision saying that he was a mere piece of property**. The courts followed by politicians, especially the Republican party, have since murdered the voting rights act while ignoring the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution.

* as the percentage of African Americans completing high school, the number of African American college students, and the percentage of citizen population voting in the United States. African American denotes black along, not in combination with other races. Courtesy United States Census Bureau.

** It said black people, free or enslaved, could not be American citizens and constitutionally unable to sue for citizenship in the federal courts, which means they cannot vote.