Reagan Rights Record Called ‘Deplorable’

Calling President Reagan’s record “deplorable,” the Urban League said today that black America continued to lose ground economically in 1984, a year marked by greater racial polarization and heightened alienation among the poor.

“That black America is not worse off today than it is, is more of a testament to its traditional ability to survive under the most difficult of conditions than to anything else,” league President John E. Jacob said in an overview chapter of “The State of Black America, 1985,” its annual report issued today.

Reagan’s “record is deplorable and includes continuing attacks against affirmative action, the unwarranted entry of the Justice Department into civil rights cases in an effort to turn back the clock,” Jacob said.

He also cited the Administration’s efforts to grant tax exemptions to schools that discriminate, efforts to turn the Commission on Civil Rights into a “rubber stamp for Administration policy,” cuts in domestic spending and “foot dragging” on extending the Voting Rights Act.

“In virtually every area of life that counts, black people made strong progress in the 1960s, peaked in the ‘70s, and have been sliding back ever since,” Jacob said, attributing much--though not all--of the decline to economic hard times.