BEING BLACK IN THE 1960’S The statistics were grim for black Americans in 1960. Their average life-span was seven years less than white Americans'. Their children had only half the chance of completing high school, only a third the chance of completing...
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BEING BLACK IN THE 1960’S The statistics were grim for black Americans in 1960. Their average life-span was seven years less than white Americans'. Their children had only half the chance of completing high school, only a third the chance of completing college, and a third the chance of entering a profession when they grew up. On average, black Americans earned half as much as white Americans and were twice as likely to be unemployed. Despite a string of court victories during the late 1950s, many black Americans were still second-class citizens. Six years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, only 49 southern school districts had desegregated, and less than 1.2 percent of black schoolchildren in the 11 states of the old Confederacy attended public school with white classmates. Less than a quarter of the South's black population of voting age could vote In certain Southern counties blacks could not vote, serve on grand juries and trial juries, or frequent all-white b
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