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their own homes went down for the first time since the Depression. Savings and investment were down. More Americans were working longer hours at lower pay.

And for those Americans whose skins were black or brown, the poverty rate went up while median family income went down.

Poverty for black and Hispanic senior citizens went up, children who were poor got poorer, the numbers in poverty more than doubling.

In the late 1960's, three-quarters of all black men were working; by the 80's end, only 57% had a job.

In 1968, the Kerner Commission, appointed by President Johnson to investigate he causes and prescribe the cures for the riots of 1967, concluded that "white racism" was the single most important cause of continued racial inequality in income, housing, employment, education, and life chances between blacks and whites.

But then civil rights champion Lyndon Johnson was succeeded in 1968 by Richard Nixon. Nixon had been a civil rights advocate as Eisenhower's Vice-President; but, first as candidate and then as President, he pursued a 'Southern stategy' which used race to leach white voters away from the Democrats. Republicans have used race as a wedge ever since.

Within a few short years, the growing number of blacks and other minorities and women, pushing for entry into and power in the academy, the media, business, government, and other traditionally white male institutions, created a backlash in the