Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday in the United States that honors the memory of the influential civil rights activist and baptist minister who called for an end to racial segregation through non-violence.
King received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his work, one year after delivering the world-changing 鈥淚 have a dream鈥 speech in front of some 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom had called for economic, racial and social equality and marked a turning point for the civil rights movement in the United States. It鈥檚 60 years on and while much has changed, racial inequality still permeates U.S. society today.
Pew Research Center U.S. adults to capture a snapshot of sentiments on racial equality in the country. One of the questions included on the survey asked respondents how likely they think it is that there will be equality for all people in the U.S., regardless of their race or ethnicity, in their lifetime.
As the following chart shows, nearly a quarter of Black respondents said that it was 鈥渘ot at all likely鈥 - almost double the share of their white counterparts (12 percent). By contrast eight percent of white respondents thought that it was 鈥渆xtremely likely鈥 versus one percent of Black respondents.
When looking at the total pool of respondents, the most common answer was that it was 鈥渘ot too likely鈥 or 鈥渟omewhat likely鈥, with just over a third of respondents picking each. Hispanic respondents were slightly more optimistic than the other groups, with 42 percent saying that it was 鈥渟omewhat likely.鈥 The answer 鈥渘ot too likely鈥 was the most common pick among Black, White and Asian respondents.
Pew researchers then asked the respondents who said that equal rights haven鈥檛 gone far enough which systems are in need of the most change. At least 80 percent of respondents said that the prison system, policing, political system, healthcare system, courts and judicial process and economic system need either a complete overhaul or at least
