Sixty years on

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the signing into law of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, a national day set aside to note and honor Martin Luther King Jr., the leader of the movement that led to that act becoming law.

We must ask how, after 60 years with vast changes in the world, with developments in technology unimaginable 60 years ago, that we remain obsessed with race. How is it that claims of racism, injustice and unfairness persist like nothing happened?

Data suggest that Black Americans, on average, still lag behind economically. The Federal Reserve recently published its Survey of Consumer Finances showing that the average Black family income is 43 percent that of white families. In 1989, it was 42 percent.

Average Black household net worth now is 15.6 percent that of white households. In 1989, it was 17.8 percent.

The deterioration of traditional religious values in the country has taken a toll on all American families, but proportionally more on Black families. Per the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, in 2022, 43 percent of Black children lived in a two-parent home. Among white children, 75.6 percent lived in a two-parent home.

America today is a far different country than the one where King led the civil rights movement.

The language that King used to lead and animate his movement was the language of the Bible. He spoke as a pastor.

In 1965, according to Gallup, 70 percent of Americans said religion is “very important” in their lives. In 2023, 45 percent of Americans say religion is “very important” in their lives.

In the last speech of his life in 1968, in Memphis, King spoke about “injustice,” that “we are God’s children.”

He spoke about not being afraid of death, that “I just want to do God’s will,” and then spoke those famous words that he’d been “to the mountain top” and that he’d seen “the promised land.”

“I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Can anyone imagine a leader of a major political or social movement today speaking this way?

Over these 60 years since the Civil Rights Act became law, courts took the Bible and prayer out of public schools, legalized abortion and changed our legal understanding of what defines marriage.

The godless socialism of DEI—diversity, equity, inclusion—has replaced good and evil as our perspective on social justice.

As we have purged religion and replaced it with politics, we have lost the core of a religious worldview. There is good and evil, and the Creator gave free choice and personal responsibility to choose to each individual. Without this, the freedom we allegedly care so much about has little meaning.

Government has become our new religion. In 1964, federal spending took 17.3 percent of our GDP. Today it takes 24.4 percent. In 1964, gross federal debt equaled 46.2 percent of our GDP. Today it equals 119.8 percent.

It is an unfortunate quirk of history that the civil rights movement, led by a Black Christian pastor, reached its peak at the moment when Americans decided to start banishing the Bible from our culture. A movement informed by good and evil and personal responsibility has been replaced by politics, interest groups and victimhood.

The community most hurt by the purge of personal responsibility that defines individual freedom is the one that started out the weakest and the greatest victim of our moral failures. Without a new birth of faith, we will not have a new birth of freedom in America.

The whole nation and our future are in danger. And the weakest, those whom the socialists claim to care the most about, will suffer the most.

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education.