In 1963, George Wallace proclaimed: "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever", and later Wallace would run for the Presidency in 1968, and actually carry five States. Now, nearly fifty years later, there are not very many people today that would believe that anyone preaching a policy of racial segregation would be taken seriously, nor would that person have even a modest chance of winning any State in America. Further to this point, overt racism has basically been pushed into the dustbins of society, leaving us more with covert or unintentional racism which exists into the present day.
This means that the days of blacks being castigated with racial slurs and slights deliberately made against them have been minimized to an extent not previously seen in America and that this melting pot of a nation has truly begun to leave up to that creed. Blacks have made tremendous progress in America, so that we now see them at the pinnacles of educational, religious, financial, entertainment, and political power throughout the United States. This means that opportunities that previously had precluded blacks from climbing the social ladder have been opened to them, and whereas it certainly is not a level playing field, blacks at least are on the field of dreams with a chance to shine.
However, despite all the progress and laws that have been passed in America, blacks statistically are still on the short end of the stick in virtually every economic, educational, and justice level. While we can take great pride in embracing our successful black brothers that have succeeded in America, to which they often can state truthfully that their skin color has not been a barrier to their own success, there are still way too many multitudes of blacks that cannot make that same assessment and have subsequently been left behind.
The United States has an obligation that all people within its borders have equal and fair chances for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and further to this point, America has a special obligation to see that those that were previously held in servitude are given full and complete access to their inalienable rights which were wrongly denied to them upon birth. This means that the mere appearance of fairness is not fairness, that fairness must come from being equally applied to all, so that in situations such as in our public educational system, we have in effect, separate and unequal public school systems, in which some are able to go to schools of high educational quality and inherent safety, whereas others are stuck within schools of low educational achievements and chaos.
We can therefore easily say that these are the best and worst times for blacks, because if you are black and live in the right neighborhood, with the right infrastructure and social benefits, your chance of success and of having a life of value are appreciably better than those unfortunate poor people that live on the wrong side of the tracks. So that, if one hundred years ago it came down simply to a white vs. a black divide, these masks have been ripped off, and today the division is now almost exclusively social class, or rich vs. poor, with the color of one's skin being of far less relevance to the ruling class.