So How Did That Racist Ronald Reagan Treat the Black Community? - Some Facts of How Blacks Fared Under President Reagan

African-American columnist Joseph Perkins took a look how Blacks fared under the Reagan administration and found that “on balance, the majority of Black Americans made considerable progress in the 1980s.” Among the facts he listed include:

• Total Black business receipts increased from $12.4 billion in 1982 to $18.1 billion in 1987, translating into an annual average growth rate of 7.9 percent (compared to 5 percent for all U.S. businesses.
• Upwardly mobile cohort grew by a third under Reagan’s watch, from 3.6 million in 1980 to 4.8 million in 1988.
• the middle class constituted more than 40 percent of Black households by the end of Reagan’s presidency
• Between 1982 and 1988, total Black employment increased by 2 million, a staggering sum. That meant that Blacks gained 15 percent of the new jobs created during that span, while accounting for only 11 percent of the working-age population.
• The Black jobless rate was cut by almost half between 1982 and 1988. Over the same span, the Black employment rate – the percentage of working-age persons holding jobs – increased to record levels, from 49 percent to 56 percent.
• The number of Black professionals increased by an astounding 63 percent.
• Black college enrollment increased by 100,000 between 1980 and 1987
• The 1980s saw an improvement in the Black high school graduation rate, as the proportion of Blacks 18 to 24 years old earning high school diplomas increased from 69.7 percent in 1980 to 76 percent by 1987.
Not that this will stop the left from calling the right racists, but the facts need to get out there.  

These are the type of things we need to work on getting out to minority communities.  This is not pandering, but explain how our policies and belief systems benefit them.  The changing demographics in our country say that we need to do more outreach to the black and latino communities.  

H/T African American Conservatives.