Achievements And Challenges Of African Americans' Assimilation Into The Mainstream Society Since 1960s

In the past several decades since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, African Americans have made significant achievements in their assimilation into the mainstream society. Sufficient progress has been made in earnings of employed workers, occupational mobility and educational attainment. There has also been a sharp rise of political participation and electoral power of African Americans. Moreover, the attitudes of whites toward blacks have changed in a positive direction. In a word, African Americans have reached a high level of cultural assimilation and are in the incipient stage of secondary structural assimilation.However, in the assimilation process they still face many challenges. First, discrepancy between blacks and whites in both economic status and political power persists. Second, indirect discrimination against African Americans and the more subtle racist ideology are still in existence. And the primary structural assimilation remains minimal. What is more, in the past several decades the black community has experienced an imbalanced development. As a result, African Americans face a danger of polarization.Through examining the achievements and challenges respectively, the thesis explores the assimilation degree of African Americans and concludes that they still have a long way to go before they are collectively assimilated into the mainstream American society.