In the spring of 1963, the rate of unemployment for whites was 4.8 percent. For nonwhites it was 12.1 percent. According to government estimates, one-fifth of the white population was below the poverty line, and one-half the black population was below that line. The civil rights bills emphasized voting, but voting was not a fundamental solution to racism or poverty.

1963. From Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States