State of Black America 2014

The National Urban League has published the 38th edition of The State of Black America, a book with essays by some of our nation's leading thinkers, including our own J. Marshall Shepherd:

the State of Black America®– One Nation Underemployed: Jobs Rebuild America – underscores a reality the National Urban League knows all too well – that the major impediments to equality, empowerment and mobility are jobs, access to a living wage and wealth parity. Amidst the discourse and debate about income inequality and other economic news-of-the-day, One Nation Underemployed: Jobs Rebuild Americaunderscores the urgency of the jobs crisis—both un-and-under-employment—and  how African Americans and other communities of color can recover from the losses of the Great Recession and forge a path to economic stability and upward mobility.

As the National Urban League continues to press the case for closing the growing divide in economic opportunity, the State of Black America presents the Equality Index™, an important tool for tracking racial equality in America, now in its tenth edition of the Black-White Index and its fifth edition of the Hispanic-White Index.

Alongside essays by Shepherd, Wynton Marsalis, Kathleen Sibelius and Jeffrey Robinson, the book contains: 

• rankings of metro areas based on unemployment and income equality for Blacks and Hispanics
• 26 featuted metro areas with large African American and/or Hispanic populations
• comentaties from the mayors of four of these areas

It's an outstanding collection of essays from leaders in every field, and we are proud of and proud to support Dr. Shepherd's presence among them. The book can be viewed online here.