…there was a steady rise in black voting rates after 1996. In fact, the black turnout rate increased by about 13 percent between 1996 and 2012, the agency reports.
2. Education. In 1995, 73.4 percent of African-American men had high school degrees. In 2004, 84.3 percent did, according to the Census Bureau.
3. Arrests. Law enforcement agencies made 3.5 million arrests of blacks in 1994, which was 30.9 percent of all arrests, the FBI said. (By comparison, they made 7.6 million arrests of whites that year, which was 66 percent of all arrests.) By 2013, the latest available data, African-American arrests had decreased to 2.5 million, 28 percent of all arrests. But we do not have information on the number of deaths of unarmed Black men and women by police. We do know that more are being broadcasts thanks to technology and social media.
So what now? What happens now in the next 10, 20, or 40 years? There’s no doubt that many were inspired after the first march. There’s no way of knowing how many or to what degree the rally inspired to start a business, reconcile with their families or an increase in political participation.
While we don’t know the future, what we do know its that if things are going to change, we have to be the ones to change it.