congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings. c-span gives you a front row seat to how issues are debated and decided, with no commentary, no interruptions, and completely unfiltered. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. today marks the 60th anniversary of the march on washington, where the reverend martin luther king, jr., gave his "i have a dream" speech. georgetown university will host a discussion with civil rights advocates on efforts to advance racial equality. watch on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. tonight president biden will ofr much at a white house possession mking their 50th anniversary of the founding of the lawyers committee for civil rights under law. you can watch at six a quick p.m. eastern on c-span now, our

free mobile video app. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these companies and more, including media,. >> we believe that whether you live here or here are way up in the middle of anywhere, you should have access to fast, reliable internet. >> mediacom suppos c-span as a public service ang with these other television providers, giving you a front procedure democracy -- front row seat to democracy. maye a policy and research analyst with the economic policy institute. he is going to talk about his new research, which found that post-civil rights era legislation has failed to address the widening racial disparities in this country. mr. maye welcome to washington

journal. on your report, it begins in the post-civil war era, the era from reconstruction to civil rights. how do you describe the economic picture for black americans during that period? guest: it was very significant gains during reconstruction. black workers were seeing positive economic gains, but as we all know the implementation of jim crow legislation had walked back a lot of that progress during reconstruction. other discriminatory policies that were enacted during that time, including redlining and even when we think about the g.i. bill and how many black veterans were systemically excluded from the benefits of

homeownership, those benefits, we see that the long casting shadow of economic inequity has its roots specifically during that time. >> the march -- host: the march on washington, what were the economic messages that dr. king and the other speakers were trying to get through to americans and american lawmakers? guest: the march on washington for jobs and freedom, a lot of the demands were largely economic. some of their goals included national minimum wage that would give all americans a decent standard of living and a more inclusive, fair labor standard act, which would include all

areas of employment and employees that were presently excluded, a massive federal program to train, unemployed workers and civil rights legislation to guarantee adequate education, housing, equal access to public accommodations and the right to vote. host: it would be two years before that civil rights legislation would be passed and enacted into law, same with the voting rights act passed and enacted into law. when you look at those acts and other civil rights legislation of that era, where do you see the areas where we have largely fallen short? guest: i think that the civil rights legislation, the civil rights era, the movement as a whole succeeded in removing barriers to equal rights under the law. to what i was saying, many of the economic demands were left unmet. it adversely impacted the economic security of people of color. that led to the economic outcomes present today. while we do have the right to vote, we know that voter

suppression is rampant in many parts of the country. we see many ways in which politicians are disempowering voters of color, and black letters in particular from exercising that right to vote. we know that homeownership continues to be a problem. well, continues to be a problem with many black families having negative wealth. income disparities have grown more disparate over time. we are seeing many of the things we were asking for during the march are still things we are striving for today. host: in your report, you provide a very clear graphic on black unemployment, consistently higher than the unemployment of any other racial or ethnic group. your research goes back all the way to the 1970's. clearly, a big dip in unemployment among all classes

here during the trump administration, the spike in covid, and the drop again now during the biden administration. why has that line tracked consistently higher for the black population? guest: i think that also goes into some of the structural racism within our economy. black workers are often employed, or are more likely to be employed in sectors or jobs given low wages. because of that, during economic downturns they receive some of the most disparate outcomes. there are even other things like occupational segregation, for example that are also structural and systemic that provide barriers or inhibit black workers from having that safety net during those economic downturns, those recessions. as a

from the 1960's to the present, highlighting iniquities in the labor market as a whole. host: do you look at specific jobs or specific industries where black-and-white, black workers making less than the white worker in that specific

job? guest: i didn't look at specific industries, but the statistics i just gave you with the typical black worker is the average across all industries. host: our guest is a policy and research analyst with the economic policy institute. we welcome your calls and comments. here are the lines for the east and central time zones. (202) 748-800 from mountain and pacific. you look at black homeownership rates, gre significantlyw from 1940 to 1980, but started to drop after 1980. what's going on? why did that happen? guest: i believe that there were policies, for example, in place during that time. as i said, right after the civil

rights era, of slight gains, i would say, in many of the things that were happening, whether it was employment, obviously due to some of those barriers being brought down, and also on ownership. however, the progress that even during that time wasn't able to be sustained. the legacy of redlining and other discriminatory policies like exclusionary zoning have kept black families from achieving broad homeownership, building wealth, and accessing affordable housing as well. host: do the legacies of those policies, redlining, exclusionary zoning in particular, do those still exist today? guest: yeah, absolutely. a colleague of mine, we did another research paper about a year ago where we were trying to understand the housing shortage

that exists today. the reason one of the main contributing factors for that housing shortages because of policies like exclusionary zoning, which are in place where you can to build other houses. those have roots within obviously redlining and other discriminatory policies that have existed 60, 70, 80 years ago, and has led to the broad inaccessible and unaffordable housing crisis we are in today. host: you also point out not just in housing, but what that means more broadly for familie'' wealth. you look at white and black families. the legacy of slavery, redlining, and discrimination limits black families' wealth relative to white families. this white blue line being

like families and the dark white families. obviously a very big difference in median family network. what is the gap here? what are these numbers here today? guest: what you are seeing is obviously the median wealth that a white family has an median wealth that a black family has. typically for families of color, black families in particular, a lot of their wealth is tied into their home. -- unfortunately because of the homeownership crisis, many black families are not able to access that wealth, they are not able to access having that within their home, and also they face unfortunate and discriminatory, i would say implications of even