National
Racial Concerns Approach Highest Point Since Civil Rights Era
Protesters march down the street in Ferguson, Mo. Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2014. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Aaron Blake, THE WASHINGTON POST
(The Washington Post)—A significant majority of Americans think race relations in the United States are bad, and race issues appear as pressing today as they have been at basically any point since the Civil Rights era, according to new polls.
And all that was before Saturday, when according to all indications, the long-simmering tensions turned deadly.
The murders of two New York City police officers by a man who had apparently signaled the killings would be in retaliation for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown have ratcheted up the rhetoric in an already-pitched debate about police treatment of black men.
And that debate is arguably as big now as it has been at any time in nearly half a century — since the Civil Rights era ended in the late 1960s.
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