U.S. Coalition of Cities Against Racism and Discrimination Action Plan

Posted by on March 03, 2014

U.S. Coalition of Cities Against Racism and Discrimination
10-Point Plan of Action

In the 50 years since the murder of Medgar Evers in Jackson, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham which killed four young girls, and the march on Washington led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., much progress has been made in addressing past grievances and in assuring the civil and human rights of all Americans. Federal civil and voting rights laws have been passed and to a great extent implemented. But much remains to be done.

For all of the progress we have made in civil rights in America, serious racial and ethnic disparities persist: Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to be poor than their white counterparts. Black children are three times more likely to be poor than white children. Black children are one and one-half times more likely to be uninsured than white children and twice as likely to die before their first birthday. Blacks and Hispanics have a higher unemployment rate than the white population.

Crime disproportionately affects the black community, particularly black men and boys. African Americans account for 13 percent of the population, but nearly half of total homicide victims are black, and 85 percent of these are men. Black children and teens are 17 times more likely to die from a gun homicide than white children and teens. Racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in the prison population. Among male prisoners in state and federal facilities, 39 percent are black and 23 percent are Hispanic. Among state prisoners serving time for drug offenses, 65 percent are either black or Hispanic. Compounding the impact of these incarceration statistics have on blacks and Hispanics are policies – in both the public and private sectors – which make it difficult, if not impossible, for people leaving prison to return to their communities, secure employment and housing, and become contributing members of society.

Read more: http://usmayors.org/10-PointPlan/10pointplan.pdf