National Urban League finds State of Black America is grim

A girl in a stroller plays with a squirt gun as a woman pushes her past a Black Lives Matter mural in the Shaw neighborhood in Washington, Monday, July 13, 2020 (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

The National Urban League released its annual report on the State of Black America on Tuesday, and its findings are grim. This year’s Equality Index shows Black people still get only 73.9 percent of the American pie white people enjoy.

While Black people have made economic and health gains, they’ve slipped farther behind whites in education, social justice and civic engagement since this index was launched in 2005. A compendium of average outcomes by race in many aspects of life, it shows just how hard it is for people of color to overcome systemic racism, the civil rights organization says.

“These numbers change so little and so slowly. What it tells me is that this institutional disparity based on race seems to be built into American society,” National Urban League President Marc Morial said in an interview.