
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 27, 1993                   TAG: 9308270027
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

POLL: EQUAL JUSTICE STILL A DREAM FOR MINORITIES

Getting equal justice is still a major problem for minorities in the United States, a majority of Americans say in a poll marking the 30th anniversary of a landmark civil rights march on Washington.

For many people, memories of the gathering of 200,000 people on the Washington Mall on Aug. 28, 1963, are burnished by a speech in which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. built an emotional plea for equality on the refrain "I have a dream."

But more than one in three of those polled - 37 percent - say they are not familiar with that event. Those who were young adults during the '60s are most likely to have clear memories of the march, the poll indicates.

In the two years after the march, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were enacted, removing many barriers that prevented full participation in American life by blacks.

About 60 percent of those polled believe the nation has made substantial progress toward King's dream of racial equality, but 30 percent say "not very much" progress has been made.

Blacks believe the situation is much worse than whites do - 47 percent of blacks think there has not been much progress toward equality, compared with 30 percent of whites, the poll found.

The telephone poll of 1,003 adults was taken Friday through Tuesday by ICR Survey Research Group of Media, Pa., part of AUS Consultants.

by CNB