Americans Divided on Progress Made Since March on Washington

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday in the United States that honors the memory of the influential civil rights activist and baptist minister who called for an end to racial segregation through non-violence.

It's six decades since King delivered the world-changing “I have a dream” speech and U.S. adults have mixed feelings over the progress made towards racial equality in the country. According to a poll taken by the Pew Research Center in April, while 52 percent of respondents thought that either a "fair amount" or a "great deal" of progress has been made in the time that lapsed, a third said that there has been "some progress" and 15 percent said that there has been either "not much" or none at all.

Tellingly, when looking at the breakdown by race, wide disparities still exist. As the following chart shows, white respondents were twice as likely to say a “fair amount” or a “great deal” of progress had been made than Black respondents, signalling to an imbalance in perceptions between white respondents who think progress has been made, and Black respondents who are more affected by racial inequality and say otherwise.

There are differences along party lines too. According to Pew Research Center, 67 percent of Republicans or Republican-leaning voters thought that a great deal or a fair amount of progress had been made since the March on Washington, while the share of Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters holding the same opinion stood at 38 percent.