“To be a Negro in America is to hope against hope,” wrote Martin Luther King in the last year of his life. The advance the black man in the United States, from the position of slave to that of proud and equal citizen, is slow. The black man's hopes have often ended in despair.
“Of the good things in life he has about one-half those of whites; of the bad he has twice those of whites,” wrote Dr. King. Half of all black people lived in poor houses. They have received about half as much pay as whites. They had twice as many of their people out of work and twice as many babies dead for lack of proper care. Allowing for their numbers, twice as many black men as white fought in the war in Vietnam, and twice as many died in that war. Most black people still did work that was unpleasant and poorly paid. That was the only work they could get.