Survey: Nearly 40% of Republicans believe racial equality efforts have gone 'too far'

Sixty years after civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. gave his monumental “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington advocating for racial equality for all Americans, particularly Black Americans, a new Pew Research survey found that more than one in three Republicans say these efforts have gone “too far.”

The report — based on a survey of 5,073 U.S. adults and conducted April 10-16 online — analyzed Americans' views of progress on racial equality six decades removed from the height of the civil rights movement. Its findings revealed that 37% of Republicans say efforts to ensure equality for all, regardless of race and ethnicity, have gone too far.

In contrast, just 24% of Republicans say these efforts have not gone far enough. Most Democrats, or 78%, agree, compared to just 6% of Democrats who say that efforts have gone too far.

“There’s no consensus among Americans on how much progress the country has made in ensuring racial equality in the last 60 years,” Juliana Horowitz, the report’s author, told Yahoo News, noting that views “vary considerably” by race, ethnicity and political affiliation.

‘Democrats and Republicans see the world differently’

Overall, about half of Americans, or 52%, say there’s been a great deal or a fair amount of progress in the last sixty years, while 33% say there’s been some progress and 15% say there hasn’t been much or any progress at all.

For many people, the survey results validate a sense of stagnation they had felt in recent years, particularly in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, where for months millions of people and corporations pledged to combat racial justice. Last month, several leaders of local Black Lives Matter chapters expressed doubt about whether real progress has occurred for Black Americans since 2020.

The results of this Pew survey come just weeks after a Yahoo News/YouGov poll revealed that the majority of Donald Trump voters believe that racism against white Americans has become a bigger problem than racism against Black Americans. More specifically, 62% of Trump voters say that racism against Black Americans is a problem today — while 73% say that racism against white Americans is a problem.

Both sets of data — from Trump voters and self-identified Republicans, overlapping but not identical cohorts — in comparison to Democrats offer insight into how political affiliations shape Americans’ view on issues regarding race.

“The idea that there’s partisan polarization in terms of viewpoint is just a general fact of life,” Andra Gillespie, an Emory University political science professor, told Yahoo News. “Democrats and Republicans see the world differently.”

“We also cannot ignore the demographic realities of what the Democratic and Republican coalitions look like, with the Democratic coalition having a disproportionate share of people of color and [a] disproportionate share of Black folks,” she added.

The racial climate in 1963

In 1963, the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, life for African Americans was bleak: high levels of Black unemployment, little to no economic mobility and the disenfranchisement in every facet of American life was pervasive throughout the country, especially the South. It was this lack of progress that led to frequent boycotts and mass demonstrations.

As King and other Black leaders stood before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in front of upwards of 250,000 people, advocating for equitable economic and civil rights for Black Americans, the country was in the midst of the largest civil rights movement it had seen at the time. When Dr. King took the podium on Aug. 28, 1963 and gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, it ultimately served as a rallying cry for Black Americans to press on despite the daily hardships of Jim Crow, a racial caste system in which African Americans were relegated to second-class citizens.

Sixty years later, some believe that, while total progress has not been achieved, the considerable steps forward for Black Americans cannot be understated.

“We would be remiss to deny progress,” Gillespie said. “There has been progress that has been made. On the other hand, it has been uneven.”

“The problem is the problem of narrative,” she added. “We Americans like a nice neat story that we can tie up with a bow. This isn't that story and it's never been that story. The story has actually always been jagged.”