Martin Luther King's dream helped many civil rights laws get passed, but in America's modern times, the Civil Rights Laws have not affected discrimination against African-Americans in the areas of jobs, education, and legal rights. This discrimination does not necessarily take place in the open all of the time, but it often occurs behind the closed doors of private institutions and the national legal system. These actions have caused many African- Americans to still be considered lower in status than whites because of the way they are treated in the privacy of modern American society.

In the area of jobs African-Americans are being discriminated so much now that the government must pass laws requiring that for every so many whites working for a company that a certain number of blacks must be hired. In 1992 over 1 million black males were unemployed compared to the 4.1 million unemployed White males. This may sound good, but it isn't. Only 12% of the American population is black, so the equation does not add up. Also, for the Blacks that are able to get jobs, they don't get paid near as much as Whites. In 1992 White people earned an average of $12,762 more than Blacks according to the 1994 Information Please Almanac.

Black people are also discriminated against greatly in the education process. Many people don't know how this can happen, but it does. The admissions offices of colleges and universities don't have to accept any single person unless they want to. That's why they want to know your race when you apply there. This is mainly how they discriminate against Blacks. Because of this, according to the 1994 Information Please Almanac only 14% of Blacks have degrees beyond high school, compared to 26.4% of Whites and only 2.7% of Blacks have advanced dgrees, compared to 6.2% of Whites.

Another area of discrimination in the 90's is with legal rights. Although I could find no information linked to this, I was able to come up with some conclusions to this problem. I found that 5.8% of Black males are in prison or jail, compared to 1.0% of White males. One hypothesis for this discrepancy may be that many Black people are unable to get lawyers to help them, causing themto have to go to prison. Being unable to get a good lawyer is not discrimination, but because many have a poor education, and work for low pay due to discrimination, so their legal representation is inferior. This also contributes to the fact that more Blacks are sitting on Death Row than Whites, and that 9 out of 10 male inmates are Black.

King's "Dream" is still very much alive as it helped many of today's civil rights laws get passed. Although discrimination is still very much alive and happening behind the closed doors of private institutions, we (the citizens of the United States) are trying to solve this problem, which is still occuring in the areas of jobs, education, and legal rights. But because of this, Blacks are still seen as second-class citizens by the white power structure (against the 14th Ammendment of the Constitution of the United States of America).

Jason H.
David W.

Source-1994 Information Please Almanac