Poll Finds Blacks Optimistic on Future

WASHINGTON —  On the eve of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday, black Americans appear optimistic about the future but upset at the pace of progress for many and convinced that racial discrimination is still rampant in America.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll of 1,022 blacks indicates that blacks are searching for answers to deep-seated, personal issues.

The survey, conducted by telephone Jan. 7 to Jan. 14, evokes a black America of many faces. Some beam appreciatively at the gains of civil rights, while others peer from behind sullied masks of chronic unemployment and low self-esteem.

Forty-eight percent said they think income and living conditions are worsening for most blacks, while 14% said they are improving. But twice as many--28%--said things are getting better for them personally, and only 23% said they are getting worse.

The poll found a solid majority who said blacks in their neighborhoods are receiving as good an education as whites, and 40% who professed that it is “not difficult at all” to make ends meet.

Half to two-thirds of those interviewed said blacks are discriminated against in getting decent housing, jobs and fair wages. Nearly eight of 10 said whites do not want blacks to get ahead.

Six of 10 said at least one-tenth of America’s white population shares the attitudes of the Ku Klux Klan, and 23% of the blacks polled said more than half of America’s whites belong in that category.

“Thinking of the future,” the poll asked, “all in all, would you say that life for blacks in this country will be better, about the same, or worse than it is now?”

Fifty-seven percent answered better, 23% said about the same and 15% said worse.