As we celebrate the King holiday, I continue to ask myself each year, “Where do we go from here?”
The black community still lacks the progressive increases of transferable wealth from one generation to the next. Though we have experienced minimal gains in areas of education and employment opportunities, sustainable wealth still has eluded people of African descent throughout the world.
Still, there is no better place to achieve the American dream than Atlanta. It has the largest concentration of black millionaires in the nation, and still leads all metropolitan regions in attracting African-Americans.
Atlanta has the country’s third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies and is ranked the eighth largest region in the United States — the second largest in the southeastern U.S., behind Miami-Fort Lauderdale — with more than 5 million residents. Atlanta is a major business and transportation hub. Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the busiest airport in the world.
Moreover, the city is one of the top three destinations for black travelers. It has the unique distinction as the only U.S. city with six historically black colleges and universities.
However, Atlanta ranks among the top cities with the most people below 50 percent of the poverty level. It has an unemployment rate of 9.2 percent, compared to the national average of 8.5 percent.
A wide gap also exists in black-white earnings. In 2008, the median income for white Atlanta households was $86,156 compared with only $29,033 for the city’s black households.
Home ownership is an essential asset for creating transformative wealth. About 60 percent of America’s middle-class families’ wealth is derived from their homes. Less than half (49 percent) of Atlanta’s black families own their homes compared to more than three-fourths (76.7 percent) of white families in the city.
As the economy slowly improves, black Americans are still experiencing an economic depression. High unemployment combined with long-term job loss is knocking many out of the middle class and back into poverty. Sadly, economic indicators are showing a historic reversal of economic gains achieved over past decades.
King’s last book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,” has a chapter in which the civil-rights icon offers economic remedies for us to consider.
He states:
“In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out: there are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and Negro alike.
“Up to recently we have proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils: lack of education restricting job opportunities; poor housing which stultified home life and suppressed initiative; fragile family relationships which distorted personality development.
“The logic of this approach suggested that each of these causes be attacked one by one. Hence a housing program to transform living conditions, improved educational facilities to furnish tools for better job opportunities, and family counseling to create better personal adjustments were designed. In combination these measures were intended to remove the causes of poverty.”
Michael T. Hill is CEO and president of the Atlanta Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce.
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