Life
Obama to celebrate civil rights law that laid the groundwork for his presidency
U.S. President Barack Obama. PHOTO/File
(Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama this week celebrates the civil rights advances of 50 years ago which laid the groundwork for him to become the first black president, but his own record in making life better for the African American community that catalyzed his election is mixed.
Obama will join former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in speaking at the Lyndon Baines Johnson presidential library in Austin, Texas, this week to mark a half century since Johnson’s landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.
As the first African American president, Obama is the physical embodiment of racial progress that Johnson brought about. The civil rights law, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the creation of Medicare were instrumental in improving equality for racial minorities and putting desegregation in the past.
“What you can say is that trio of laws allowed for the ascent of Barack Obama to the presidency and any other person of color who might follow in his wake,” said Mark Updegrove, director of the LBJ library.
Obama’s top success for African Americans was gaining passage of the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law that, after a rocky rollout, is intended as a safety net for millions of Americans. In addition, efforts by Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, to aggressively enforce civil rights laws are welcome in the African American community.
But creating jobs for African Americans has been a struggle. The annual State of Black America report by the National Urban League, entitled “One Nation Underemployed: Jobs Rebuild America,” said African Americans still lag far behind in jobs and opportunity.
The report said 20.5 percent of African-American workers are either jobless or working part-time, compared with 18.4 percent for Hispanic workers and 11.8 percent for white workers.
