Black America 1970

Both races as human beings [have] the obligation, the responsibility, of helping to correct America's human problems . . . In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America's very soul.

—Malcolm X, shortly before his assassination, 1965

THE struggle between the races in America is indeed the struggle for the soul of a nation. Lately a lull seems to have descended on that struggle. Since Richard Nixon became President, he has deliberately muted the rhetoric of race. Until last week's pronouncement on school desegregation, he had not addressed himself directly to the problem at all—and he still has not spoken out on the broader aspects of civil rights. While the black community is far from silent, its leaders have sounded comparatively subdued in the face of growing white indifference or hostility. Yet this relative calm exists on the surface only; it is largely an illusion. Blacks are asserting a new sense of pride, self-reliance—and impatience. Economically, they have made considerable progress. But this progress is most impressive in comparison with the blacks' past condition, not in comparison with white achievements. The black sense of inequality is, if anything, growing. Says the Ford Foundation's Roger Wilkins: "Racism is in every nook and cranny in this country, and each of us blacks has to deal with it every day of our lives. Any overview of black life in this country that does not include the word pain is hopelessly deficient."

More than a century after the Civil War and 16 years after the Supreme Court's school-desegregation ruling, the American black has not achieved justice or equality. This remains the biggest single problem in America, and its greatest shame. Unless the problem is solved, all of U.S. urban civilization may dissolve in a mixture of chaos and repression. That is why TIME takes the unusual step of devoting most of this issue to a report on the condition of black America today.