Black Unemployment in 21st Century America

"Where there is massive unemployment in the Black community, it is called a social problem. But where there is massive unemployment in the White community, it is called a depression."

Those words said by Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968 still resonate today as African Americans face a worsening job crisis. Black men are especially being hit hard by the recent recession. In a recent article in the New York Times Bob Herbert looked at the problem of Black unemployment:

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"A new study of black male employment trends has come up with the following extremely depressing finding: 'By 2002, one of every four black men in the U.S. was idle all year long. This idleness rate was twice as high as that of white and Hispanic males.'"
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In New York City the unemployment rate for young Black men is an unbelievable fifty percent. The attacks of September 11th and the recession hit the Black community much harder economically than any other group. This is a tragedy considering the monumental gains during the nineties in the number of poor African Americans raised out of poverty and their rising employment status.

BET.com has been one of the few outlets covering the economic fallout of the past few years for the Black community. Here is their special report.