As we prepare to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.,
we should be cautious about congratulating ourselves for having
overcome segregation and the resultant inequality against which
King is best known for fighting. Indeed, the problems of racial
segregation in housing and education are no less urgent than
they were 40 years ago. A study published this past May in the
American Sociological Review shows that today, blacks and whites
overwhelmingly live in neighborhoods with members of their own
race. Though they do so by choice, this is still problematic
because, as a 2011 study from the Joint Center for Political and
Economic Studies found, in the cities with such high levels of
racial segregation, blacks and Latinos live far shorter lives
than whites and are much more prone to long-term health
problems, like asthma, due to higher pollution levels. The
picture is no brighter in public schools, as a report issued in
September by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA shows. It found
that school segregation