We are constantly told by advocates of critical race theory that blacks can’t advance in America because of “institutional racism” and that only massive government intervention can change that.
Oddly enough, in the era when there were a lot of prominent, avowed racists — the ’40s and ’50s — blacks made big economic gains. That economic progress, however, slowed to a crawl after the supposedly compassionate and helpful policies of LBJ were put in place. Maybe the key to economic progress is not government assistance but instead personal responsibility. (But that won’t buy votes.)
Economist Richard Vedder surveys the history in this essay in Independent Review.