Political Determinants of Income Changes for African-American Women and Men

Significant changes have occurred in both the relative income ratios and labor force participation rates of African-American women and men in the postwar period. These changes are most accurately described as economic bifurcation for African-American men, and increases in both participation rates and relative incomes for African-American women. Evidence is presented which supports the hypothesis that the economic/political impact of the civil rights/black power movement was an important factor in these changing economic outcomes, as was the context of increasing economic crisis. These outcomes have serious implications for the future economic viability of some sectors of the African-American community, for the future of African-American politics, and for the forms that white ideological and institutional racism takes in the latter 20th-century U.S.