Americans Not Too Optimistic on Achieving Racial Equality

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.

King received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his work, one year after delivering the world-changing “I have a dream” speech in front of some 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom had called for economic, racial and social equality and marked a turning point for the civil rights movement in the United States. It’s 60 years on and while much has changed, racial inequality still permeates U.S. society today.

Pew Research Center polled U.S. adults to capture a snapshot of sentiments on racial equality in the country. One of the questions included on the survey asked respondents how likely they think it is that there will be equality for all people in the U.S., regardless of their race or ethnicity, in their lifetime.

As the following chart shows, nearly a quarter of Black respondents said that it was “not at all likely” - almost double the share of their white counterparts (12 percent). By contrast eight percent of white respondents thought that it was “extremely likely” versus one percent of Black respondents.

When looking at the total pool of respondents, the most common answer was that it was “not too likely” or “somewhat likely”, with just over a third of respondents picking each. Hispanic respondents were slightly more optimistic than the other groups, with 42 percent saying that it was “somewhat likely.” The answer “not too likely” was the most common pick among Black, White and Asian respondents.

Pew researchers then asked the respondents who said that equal rights haven’t gone far enough which systems are in need of the most change. At least 80 percent of respondents said that the prison system, policing, political system, healthcare system, courts and judicial process and economic system need either a complete overhaul or at least