Today marks the 25th observance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday.
A new Rasmussen survey found 62 percent of blacks and 54 percent of whites believe Dr. King's dream of social justice has not been fulfilled.
Also last week, the Children's Defense Fund released a report, “A Portrait of Inequality 2011,” which documents racial disparities:
The economic crisis of the last three years has pushed Black children and youth deeper and deeper into an abyss of poverty, hunger, homelessness and despair. Black children and youth continue to face multiple risks from birth and throughout life that increase the danger of their becoming part of the Cradle to Prison Pipeline® crisis that leads to dead end lives.
Some facts:
- Black children are three times as likely to be poor (35%) as White children (12%).
- Black children are more than three times as likely as White children to live in extreme poverty: half of the poverty level or less ($10,977 for a family of four).
- Fewer than 40 percent of all Black children live with two parents, compared to about 75 percent of White children.Fifty percent of Black children live with only their mother. Black children are almost three times as likely to live with their mother only as are White children.
- Seventy percent of Black babies are born to unmarried mothers, more than twice the rate for White babies and higher than for any other racial or ethnic group.
- Black babies are more than twice as likely as White babies to be born to a teen mother.
Read more: A Portrait of Inequality 2011: Black Children in America
