How successful was the Civil Rights movement by 1970?
In 1964 the Civil Rights Act had been passed. By 1965 black people could vote without restrictions. In 1968 the Civil Rights act had been passed meaning no more segregation in cafes, buses, schools etc. In 1960 only 66,000 black people voted in Alabama later after the Voting rights had been passed 250,000 black people voted which was a massive increase. However just fifty six percent of black people registered to vote in 1968 (in Alabama), so maybe everything in the political area was not correct. Black people may have thought that there was no use of voting as a white person was guaranteed to be elected, they would not get any extra benefit from the voting. So although all blacks could vote, just over half voted showing their attitude to U.S politics as corrupt. Along with legal changes there were Economic Changes in America. In 1959 only 18% of white people were below the poverty line and a colossal 56% of black people were unemployed. This shows how unfair employment was and how low the blacks were being paid for their jobs. Nine years later the amount of poor whites decreased 8% to 10%. Even more impressive was the fact that percentage blacks in poverty had decreased 23% to 33%. That was still not good enough because there were much more whites who were doing well with money, and still one third of black people were in poverty. There were twice as much black people unemployed than the white people. The average income for black person was just over half of the income of white person.
