Abstract
To begin with, African Americans were more and more segregated. They gathered in the same cities, living in Baltimore, Chicago, Gary, Cleveland, and Detroit, LA... The white flight phenomenon led to a loss of population in the cities, and to a loss of jobs (jobs were moving to the suburbs). Poverty and despair were everywhere in inner-city neighborhoods. Public schools were also more and more segregated. In 1990, one in three public school students was nonwhite. Because of the white flight, there was less local tax and so less income to the city. The consequence was a lack of resources for public schools and a bad quality of education (poor equipment, less experienced teachers, lower test scores, higher dropout rate).
An important issue in the nineties was the battle over Clarence Thomas's nomination. Bush announced he would nominate Clarence Thomas as a justice in the Supreme Court in 1991. Clarence Thomas was a conservative African American of little judicial distinction. He would fill the seat of Thurgood Marshall, who was the first black member of the Supreme Court and who had taken Brown v. Board of Education to the Supreme Court. The administration was aware that senate democrats, liberals, and civil rights groups would have troubles opposing an African American.
