21 Biggest Challenges Blacks Face In The 21st Century

Ebony, Dec, 1999 by Kimberly Davis

STANDING on the edge of the new millennium, there is an almost irresistible urge to look back and celebrate our accomplishments as African-Americans. But there is, at the same time, a tremendous need to look forward, to map out ground we have yet to cover.

And it is the view of major Black leaders interviewed for this article that the second step in dealing with the millennium--after celebrating and giving thanks--is to recognize and deal with the challenges we must meet in order to reach our full potential and get our fair share of the American reality.

Although the expert panel does not agree on all of the challenges or even the biggest challenge, there is some consensus on 21 major challenges and on a recurring theme--increasing the economic impact of the Black population and controlling a larger share of the economic institutions in America.

Most see this challenge--what Spelman College President Audrey F. Manley calls "harnessing the economic strength of Blacks"--as a means to an end. A greater economic impact is linked to more opportunity, which could lead to a larger, more authoritative voice in the next century.

Hugh B. Price, president and CEO of the National Urban League, says we must continue our millennium-long march to full equality and remain constant in our push into the mainstream.

"With the growth of the African-American middle class, the shattering of the glass ceiling, the integration of the corporate workforce, and the growth of African-American businesses that function in the mainstream, we've made a big push into the economic mainstream of America," says Price, who's led the New York-based organization since 1994. "We've got to continue that push and not retreat."

Major experts also see a need for renewing the spirit and character in the hope that such renewal could make facing the other challenges much easier. We've come this far by faith and hard work, they say. Don't change a successful formula.

"The biggest challenge we face is the challenge of renewing the spiritual resolve to fight on until full victory is won. To do this, we must understand clearly where we are, who we are, and how far we have come against impossible odds," says the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., president and CEO of the Chicago-based Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. "We defeated--in the 20th century--the racist law that denied us. We have oceans and mountains behind us, and mere hills and rivers in front of us."

Here, then, is a list of what some notable personalities consider to be the 21 biggest challenges of the 21st century. In facing these and other challenges, Jackson says we must remember that we are the "big winners" of the 20th century, and if we do what we did in the 20th century with so few resources, there is no limit to what we can accomplish in the new millennium.

1. To increase our capital accumulation and to control a larger share of the economic institutions in our community.

2. To increase our share of the economic institutions of America.

3. To increase our presence at the top level of management of all American economic institutions, including those in sports and entertainment.

4. To deal substantively with the widening gap between the Black haves and the Black have-nots, as well as the gap between the Black haves and have-nots and the White haves and have-nots.

5. To stop the continuing flow of drugs into our communities.

6. To increase our employment in entry-level jobs that require little or no training.

7. To reverse the economic decline of Blacks who are the most economically disadvantaged.

8. To rebuild the structures of the Black family, which was battered by economic and racist forces in the 20th century.

9. To increase our skill level and our participation in the skilled trades and the technological revolution. "Our participation in the technological revolution may be the biggest challenge we face," says Dr. Walter E. Massey, president of Morehouse College. "If we are not able to participate in the changing technological landscape, then we won't attain economic parity, because the growth in industries of the future will be technology-based. If we're not able to participate in those industries or in those fields, then we won't be able to do many of the other things."

10. To once again make education a No. 1 imperative in all Black homes. So much of our future as African-Americans is interconnected, Massey says. "It's hard to achieve any of these without the other. But it's impossible to achieve any of them unless we have an educated Black society," says Massey, who became president of the historically Black college in Atlanta in 1995. "And it would be very difficult, maybe not impossible, to substantively improve education across the board, unless it starts in the homes."

11. To deal substantively with the widening gap--economic and emotional--between Black men and Black women.

12. To rebuild the institutional structures of the Black community by dealing substantively with the sharp drop in the participation level of young Blacks in all traditional Black institutions.