Post–civil rights era in African-American history
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X, an African-American rights activist with national and international prominence, was shot and killed in New York City.
[5] The April 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. led to protests and riots in multiple U.S. cities, primarily in Black-majority communities.
[10] On April 8, 1970, the nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court was defeated by the U.S. Senate, in part because of his history of racist remarks and actions.
[citation needed] In 1971, the release of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and Shaft marked the start of Blaxploitation films.
[11] The Blaxploitation genre catered to Black male fantasies surrounding violence, sex, the drug trade, pimping and overcoming "The Man".
[12][13] On April 20, 1971, the Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld busing of students to achieve integration.
In 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first major-party African-American candidate for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In 1972, DJ Kool Herc developed the musical blueprint for what later became hip-hop, later playing live shows for high school-age students in the Bronx, New York City.
[16] In January 1973, gunmen stormed a house in Washington DC, and drowned four African-American children in bathtubs, and shot and killed two men and a boy.
[17][18] In 1977 the leader of the Hanafi sect led an armed takeover of 3 buildings in Washington DC, taking 149 hostages, to bring attention to the murder of his family.
[20] In the 1973 and 1974 MLB seasons, African-American baseball player Hank Aaron sought to pass Babe Ruth's career home-run record.
On November 18, 1978, six hundred and forty eight African-Americans died in the mass murder/suicide of the Peoples Temple religious group in Jonestown, Guyana.
[citation needed] The Miracle Valley shootout in October 1982 saw two Black churchgoers killed and seven Arizona law enforcement officers injured.
President Ronald Reagan signed a bill in 1983 to create a federal holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968 and considered a martyr to civil rights.
[32] In 1984, in some major cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, and Detroit, one dosage unit of crack could be obtained for as little as $2.50 (equivalent to $7.33 in 2023).
During this period, the black community also suffered a 20%–100% increase in fetal death rates, low birth-weight babies, weapons arrests, and the number of children in foster care.
[34][35][36] Wilson was regarded as the top high school player in the U.S., by scouts and coaches attending the 1984 Athletes For Better Education basketball camp.
[38] Set in the early 20th Century, The Color Purple tells the story of a young Black girl named Celie Harris who faces issues both public and socially hidden, including domestic violence, incest, pedophilia, poverty, racism, and sexism.
[42] Gangsta rap would be recurrently accused of promoting anti-social behavior and broad criminality, especially assault, homicide and drug dealing, misogyny, promiscuity and materialism.
[43] In 1988, track and field athlete Florence Griffith Joyner, also known as "Flo Jo", won three gold and one silver medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics.
[44] Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1989, becoming the first African American to lead a major United States political party.
[47] Tucker believed that the attacks upon Black women in hip-hop lyrics threatened the moral foundation of African American society.
In 2013, protests were held across the United States following the death of an unarmed African-American teenager, Trayvon Martin, who was shot by George Zimmerman in Florida.
In reaction to Martin's death and Zimmerman's acquittal, Black activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi popularized the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.
The death of Eric Garner while being held in a chokehold by a New York City policeman, Daniel Pantaleo, in July 2014, sparked additional outrage and protests across the country.
[64] The 38 African-American members of Congress formed the Congressional Black Caucus, which serves as a political bloc for issues relating to African Americans.
African Americans are underrepresented in the rapidly expanding and lucrative fields related to computer programming and technology, where innovations have led to some people making huge new fortunes.
[74] Despite the gains of the civil rights movement, other factors have resulted in African-American communities suffering from extremely high incarceration rates of their young males.
Contributing factors have been the drug war waged by successive administrations, imposition of sentencing guidelines at the federal and state levels, cutbacks in government assistance, restructuring of industry since the mid-20th century and extensive loss of working-class jobs leading to high poverty rates, and government neglect, an erosion of African American two parent families, and unfavorable social policies.
[citation needed] The southern states of the former Confederacy, which historically had maintained slavery longer than in the remainder of the country and imposed post-Reconstruction oppression, have the highest rates of incarceration and application of the death penalty.
