ABSTRACT
William Wilson argues that the Civil Rights Movement, apart from the obvious changes it engendered in American society, helped initiate public policies that bifurcated the black community. Wilson adopts the prevailing wisdom that many of the programs or policies of the “Great Society” period did not succeed in reaching those in need of help. Wilson is concerned with the lack of rigor used by some citing welfare as the cause of all ills. With urban black communities under siege by all factors, Wilson is able to make a solid case that the resulting formation of an underclass was an inevitability. Paul Peterson locates many of the problems of poor urban blacks in the spatial mismatch between people and jobs. Policy analysts concerned about the underclass, however, have to wrestle with the tough issues of how the urban black poor will be accorded the opportunities to achieve upward mobility.
