As the United States approached its 200th anniversary in 1976, then-executive director of the National Urban League Vernon E. Jordan was appalled when President Gerald Ford’s State of the Union Address “did not include a single mention of Black citizens and their needs … nor did Senator Edmund Muskie’s reply to the president include even a single reference to the hopes and aspirations of Black people.”

Jordan’s response — the first State of Black America® report — was “a profoundly depressing document,” according to the New York Times, that “dramatizes a substantial failure of political leadership.”

Today, 50 years later, as the nation approaches the milestone of 250 years, “substantial failure” does not begin to describe our current political leadership.

Set for release on July 30, the 2026 State of Black America report, “America 250: Is the American Dream Dead?,” makes clear that we are experiencing the most significant rollback of civil rights protections since Reconstruction — not as a slow erosion, but as a deliberate dismantling.

After reaching near parity in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, the Black-white voter turnout surged to an estimated 16 points in 2024. The trend is undeniably linked to the surge of voter suppression laws unleashed by the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, which gutted the section of the Voting Rights Act requiring federal oversight to ensure that voting changes were not discriminatory.

In fact, the turnout gap grew almost twice as fast in jurisdictions that formerly were covered by Section 5 as in similar jurisdictions that were not.

The Supreme Court compounded its tragic blunder with its decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which undermined the section of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits drawing electoral maps that cancel or weaken the voting power of communities of color.

Predictably, legislatures throughout the South immediately raced to create gerrymandered maps to split majority-Black districts and reinforce white-majority control.

Also predictably, state legislatures have already moved to exploit this new legal landscape. In the weeks after the decision, states accelerated efforts to redraw congressional maps, often weakening or eliminating districts that had provided Black voters with meaningful representation.

None of this is accidental. It is a coordinated, decades-long campaign to dismantle the legal architecture of the Civil Rights Movement — from voting rights to affirmative action to fair housing — through the courts when legislative avenues fail.

Across the country, we are witnessing bans on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; attacks on Black history in classrooms; and growing efforts to criminalize protest and dissent. Economic inequality remains entrenched, with Black wealth still a fraction of white wealth, and access to affordable housing, quality education, and healthcare increasingly out of reach for millions.

The question posed by this year’s State of Black America report — “Is the American Dream Dead?” — is not rhetorical. For too many Black Americans, the dream has been deferred so long that it risks becoming unrecognizable.

However, history teaches us something else as well.

At every moment when progress has been rolled back, from the end of Reconstruction to the era of Jim Crow, Black Americans and our allies have organized, mobilized, and demanded that this nation live up to its ideals.

We did it in Selma. We did it in Birmingham. We did it in communities across this country that refused to accept second-class citizenship.

And we will do it again.

The stakes could not be higher as America approaches its 250th year. This is not simply a fight for policies or programs. It is a fight for the fundamental promise of democracy itself: that every citizen has an equal voice, an equal vote, and an equal stake in the future.

If we fail, we risk enshrining a permanent system in which power is insulated from accountability and opportunity is reserved for the few.

If we succeed, we can ensure that America at 250 is not a monument to broken promises, but a testament to renewal.

Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League.