According to blackdemographics.com, 76.8% of black workers are employed in the private sector v. 79.2% of whites, whereas in the public sector 19.7% of black workers are employed v. 14.5% of white workers. This means that in the private sector blacks are relatively slightly less inclined to be employed in this area, whereas in the public sector of government workers the percentage difference is quite significant as blacks have a nearly 36% greater participation rate in government employment than whites do. This would imply strongly that it is the government that is at the forefront of equal opportunity laws and that blacks know that is the government that will give them a fairer deal than private enterprise.
This does not necessarily mean that private enterprise is discriminatory deliberately against blacks, as if this was truly the case, the differential in private employment between blacks and whites would be substantially higher, but what it does imply is that in private enterprise, it does matter and it is relevant, in who that you know, as well as your background, your similarities in life experience, and connections too are all quite relevant components.
Fortunately, for blacks, the fact that they are hired at such a high percentage of government jobs is most beneficial, as the days when government jobs were looked upon mainly as a self-sacrifice and service to the community, have been replaced with the knowledge that not only do government jobs pay at a competitive rate that compares well to private enterprise, but to a large extent government jobs with their guaranteed pensions are often far superior to the private sector's 401Ks.
Another very important attribute of government jobs is that the pay is often quite similar for all races within job classifications, that is to say, if you are a school teacher with a bachelor's degree and ten years of fulltime experience, your salary in the same city as another teacher with the same degree and experience, will almost for a certainty, be indistinguishable, irrespective of race. When it comes to the private sector, however, people with similar backgrounds and experience, can have widely divergent salaries, not necessarily because of overt discrimination, because there are numerous factors that affect salary, but within those factors, there can be conditions that favor one race over another on subtle levels which aren't obvious or even noticeable, yet they most definitely are tangible.
As much as we like to think that each man and woman are given a fair shake in this country, irrespective of their race, creed, or background, the fact is if this was actually true, than it would not have been necessary to pass the Civil War Amendments, nor later the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws, but indeed this national legislation was necessary for fairness to be more equally and universarlly applied within this country. Not too surprisingly, blacks recognized that some of their greatest progress has come from these great laws, of a strong federal government, and have in recent years, gravitated therefore to the government sector that has shown that its words actually have real meaning.