March On Washington 50th Anniversary

How Much Has Black Life Really Changed Since 1963?

With Jim Crow segregation, voting discrimination and rampant joblessness not yet in rear view, 1963 was a tough time to be black in America.

In January, Alabama governor George C. Wallace would defiantly proclaim in his inaugural speech: "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!," sending a wave of intolerance across the south that would lead to the death of four young girls at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church and the shooting death of civil rights activist Medgar Evers at his home in Jackson, Mississippi later that year.

And though there were bright spots -- African-American student Harvey Gantt entering Clemson University in South Carolina, the last U.S. state to hold out against racial integration, and James Meredith becoming the first black person to graduate from Ole Miss -- it would be a while before true change would come (as soul singer Sam Cooke's 1963-inspired hit proclaimed).

But has it?

By some estimates, no, with African Americans only barely better off in the war on poverty and imprisonment that pervades the news today. By other summations, the black community is leaps and bounds beyond where it was back in 1963.

As we acknowledge the anniversary of the 1963 March On Washington For Jobs & Freedom, a rally with parallel issues in mind, the Huffington Post has laid out a look at black life then and now to help you decide.

Source: Huffington Post

Black Barbie vs. White Barbie

Recently, Wal-Mart has drawn fire for cutting the price of a black Barbie doll to nearly half of that of the doll's white counterpart at one store and possibly others. Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem N.Y. says, "The implication of the lowering of the price is that's devaluing the black doll. While it's clear that's not what was intended, sometimes these things have collateral damage." (Read the entire story here.)

Really?!?! It's 2010. Forty-seven years have lapsed since the March on Washington and fifty-five years since the Montogomery Bus Boycott. We are currently one year into the presidency of Barack Obama, our first black president (well half-black, but I have conceded defeated on that topic). Yet, we still cannot get past these simple-minded games. Yes, we can still make great strides in race relations in this country, but we are no where close to where we once were. Let's stop playing these games and get on with our lives.

If we spent the same amount of time working to improve race relations in this country as we do finding reasons to divide our nation, we might finally live in a world free of prejudice and injustice.

The bottom line is simply this, the decision to mark down the black Barbie was simple economics; supply vs. demand.

- b