This year marks  the Civil Rights movement 50 year anniversary of race progress.

“I believe race relations have changed drastically since Martin Luther King’s days, even though several racial incidents have happened,” freshman Matthew Lyles said.

Many events, both negative and positive, have occurred since the Civil Rights Movement began, such as the presidency of Barack Obama to the protesting of police shootings of African Americans.

During the early 1900’s blacks faced many challenges such as the Jim Crow laws implemented by racist states; these laws are infamously known for segregating blacks in public places, jobs, and schools.

“I feel there is a lot more equality in the government and workplace but there is still a lot of racism present outside of the the two,” sophomore Deep Brahmbatt said.

 Improvements have been made in the public setting and schools; after the Brown vs. Board of Education case schools become integrated and this set the foundation for black children to get an equal education. Many laws have been set forth to prevent workplace discrimination of people of different races and religions.

“I think that things are really being separated due to  political standpoints, but we as a country are making progress towards stepping away from racism in general,” Lyles said.

During the 50’s and 60’s it was outlawed to date or marry a white person if you were of another ethnicity. In today’s society  Millennials have had the largest spike in interracial marriage compared to the generations before them, according to the Pew Research Center.  

Recently there have been many marches and rallies promoting the separation of the races, like the Charlottesville riot of the white supremacy group which resulted in the death of a white antifa supporter.  

 Martin Luther King Jr.’s peaceful march to Selma showed the way of a  peaceful protest even though both he and his movement were being beaten physically and mentally.  

There have also been many peaceful protests against racism that still have sparked criticism, such as the Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling that started in the fall of 2016 during an NFL game. He kneeled to draw attention to the many police shootings that were occurring among the black population.

 A half a century after the Civil Rights Movement began many believe race relations are slowly improving in America, though some would say there is more tension growing between the races.

“We can’t fully eradicate racism, humans naturally have a bias,” Lyles said.