Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Helping to seize financial control

By Marc H. Morial

In the 1960s, African Americans made great strides in equalizing the equation in the United States. The civil rights movement cleared the way for greater political and social empowerment of blacks.

The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act brought about greater political and civic participation, while Affirmative Action opened up the hallowed halls of academia and the offices of Corporate America.

But 40 years later, there still remains work to be done - especially on the economic front. The civil right movement of the 1960s and 1970s has not ended - it has just changed.

In the 2006 State of Black of America’s equality index, the National Urban League found that the economic status of African Americans is 56 percent of that of whites when comparing income, unemployment, homeownership, business ownership, median net worth and poverty rates.
By contrast, blacks fared better on the health, education, social justice and civic engagement fronts - at least 74 percent of whites and better. They even surpassed whites in terms of civic engagement - 1.04 percent of whites.

From 1967 to 2005, the rate of increase of median income for black households outpaced that of white households - 44 percent to 21 percent. Still, blacks lagged behind whites by roughly $20,000 a year - $30,858 vs. $50,784. Or in other words, blacks made 60 percent of what whites did in 2005, compared to 51 percent in 1967.

Homeownership by blacks hit an all-time high in 2004 at 49.1 percent but still well behind the 76 percent for whites. And net worth is a mere one-tenth of that of whites.
This is not our grandfathers’ civil rights struggle. While fighting for the right to participate in our nation’s political and social institutions as well as the right to be represented in academia and in the boardrooms of Corporate America, our generation needs to fight for financial independence and economic prosperity.

As I have said before and will say again, economic empowerment is the civil rights movement of the 21st Century. It is core component of the National Urban League's mission statement and embraces four major tenets: better jobs, increased homeownership, greater entrepreneurship and enhanced financial literacy.

No less important than our predecessors’ struggles, this has more to do with our own individual efforts to improve our bottom line, which is our only hope if we want to close the remaining gaps between minorities and whites in the United States.

That is why we have launched what promises to be a multi-city Economic Empowerment Tour that kicked off in Pittsburgh on October 27. In addition to heightening awareness of the economic disparities across our country, we have began providing practical tools -information, guidance and access – to enable participants to seize control of their financial futures.
Why Pittsburgh? According to the University of Pittsburgh’s 2004 Black-White Benchmarks study, the city stands as one of the most disadvantaged for African Americans of 70 cities nationwide in terms of homeownership, median household income and poverty rates.

The city ranked 50th among 70 U.S. cities for black homeownership in 2000: Only 34.5 percent of the city’s African Americans compared to 59.9 percent of whites owned their own home. Household median income for the city’s African Americans stood at $20,075 a year in 2000, compared to $32,692 by white households, putting Pittsburgh at 66th of 70 U.S. cities. And the city had the 7th highest rate of poverty in 2000: 34.1 percent of blacks were poor, compared to 14.3 percent of whites.

Entitled “You, Your Money, Your Future,” was one-day event, which was held at Carnegie Mellon University’s McConomy Auditorium, and was free and open to the general public. It focused on improving homeownership and featured a resource fair where representatives from local financial institutions, insurers and government agencies that were on hand to help guide participants through the process of securing mortgage loans, keeping their loans in good standing and other essentials of owning a home.

A town hall meeting featuring John Hope Bryant, CEO of Operation Hope, and Urban League of Pittsburgh President Esther L. Bush, among others, followed the event to discuss the subject of economic empowerment and its importance for the African-American community and our society in general.

With the 2008 presidential and congressional elections just two years away, this tour is also intended to provoke U.S. decision-makers to put the issue of economic inequality on the national agenda. We’ve heard more than enough about national security but too little about personal financial security.
Economic empowerment is not exclusive to the African American community.
Americans of all walks of life, color, religion and economic background are hurting from the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots in this nation.
According to a 2006 report by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, the United States ranked behind only Mexico of the world’s 28 most developed countries with the greatest gap between the rich and poor.

No one wins in a nation where great disparities - not only between minorities and whites but haves and have-nots - are present. It not only threatens our competitiveness. It threatens our standard of living and reverse gains made as a result of the sacrifice of previous generations.
It is in the self-interest of everyone to empower themselves and their neighbors to continue to keep this nation a global powerhouse. In light of the ever-competitive global economy, we owe it to our future generations to stand as role models of economic empowerment to encourage them to prepare themselves for the best future possible.

Pictured Above: Marc H. Morial

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