Poll: Move toward equality stalled

Associated Press

ATLANTA

Having a black president hasn’t exactly led Americans to believe their country has moved closer to the ideal of racial equality preached by Martin Luther King Jr., according to a new poll.

The AP-GfK poll found 77 percent of people interviewed say there has been significant progress toward King’s dream, about the same percentage as felt that way in 2006, before Obama was elected. Just more than one in five, 22 percent, say they feel there has been “no significant progress” toward that dream.

On Monday, the nation will mark the 25th anniversary of the federal observance of King’s birthday. The civil-rights icon would have been 82.

On the heels of the post-racial sentiment that swept Obama into office in 2008, critics have emerged questioning the president’s U.S. citizenship, mocking his Kenyan heritage and criticizing his stance on health- care reform as socialist and costly.

Some say Obama’s efforts to unify Americans ring hollow in a nation that is palpably more partisan and divided since he became president two years ago.

“The exuberance and thrill of seeing an African- American elected to the presidency has been tempered by the outrageous claims that we’ve heard about him,” said William Jelani Cobb, a history professor at Rutgers University.

Real concerns that King fought for remain, even with a black president, he said.

“And the violent rhetoric we’ve seen directed toward [Obama] diminishes the initial sentiment that we’ve made great progress because of the election,” he said.

The poll also reveals that more people plan to celebrate the federal holiday honoring King — 30 percent, compared with 23 percent who had such plans five years ago.

That includes 46 percent of non-whites, 38 percent of college graduates, 36 percent who live in urban areas and 36 percent who attend religious services at least weekly, according to the poll.

Margaret Bertels, 58, a legal assistant from Berkeley, Calif., and a Democrat, said Obama’s election was important symbolically. But in practical terms, she said, it has been difficult for the president himself to move the nation closer to King’s dream.

Hugh Simpson, 57, of rural Butte Falls, Ore., who is white, said he will celebrate by flying his American flag and talking to his friends about King.

He said he believes the country clearly has made progress since King’s days, having elected a black president.

But he’s not an Obama fan — he favors the tea- party movement. In terms of racial equality, “I don’t think we’ve had any great change in, like, two years,” Simpson said.

Some communities in the South, including around Atlanta, where schools have been closed because of a snow and ice storm, have decided to make up one of the days on MLK Day, upsetting some African-American groups.

The new poll also shows most of the nation in support of the King holiday. Three-quarters of those surveyed this year say King’s birthday should be so honored, with 84 percent of nonwhite respondents believing so, compared with 68 percent of white respondents.