Pew: Blacks Less Optimistic About Racial Progress in US

Nearly five decades after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, a new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that only 45 percent of all Americans say the country has made substantial progress toward racial equality, while 49 percent say that "a lot more" remains to be done.

The poll of 2,231 adults surveyed Aug. 1-11 found that African Americans were far less positive about racial progress in the United States than whites.

For instance, only 37 percent of whites — compared with 70 percent of blacks — surveyed said that African Americans were treated less fairly in their dealings with the police.

Similarly, 68 percent of blacks surveyed — versus 27 percent of whites — responded that African Americans were not treated as fairly as whites in the courts.

The Pew survey also found that large majorities of both blacks, 73 percent, and whites, 81 percent, responded that the two races generally got along either "very well" or "pretty well."

King's historic speech was given at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington, which will mark its 50th anniversary on Wednesday.