U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Employment Opportunities for Minorities in
Montgomery County, Ohio

Chapter 2 

Racial Attitudes in Montgomery County, Ohio  

Dayton Daily News Survey of Race Relations  

In 1979 and 1989 the Dayton Daily News surveyed residents on the importance and quality of race relations in the 6-county Miami Valley area. In both surveys, two questions were asked: How important are race relations? And, What is the quality of race relations in the Miami Valley? The respondents were divided into two groups: whites and minorities.[1] 

When asked in 1979, What is the quality of race relations in Miami Valley? among white respondents, 53 percent reported that race relations were either excellent (4 percent) or good (49 percent). Among minority respondents, less than 40 percent of minorities thought race relations were either excellent (2 percent) or good (37 percent). In contrast, only 10 percent of whites thought race relations were poor, and none thought race relations were very poor. Fifteen percent of minorities, however, thought race relations were poor, and another 2 percent thought race relations were very poor. Thirty-two percent of whites thought race relations were fair, while 41 percent of minorities considered race relations fair [2]. 

The paper repeated the survey 10 years later in 1989. Again respondents divided along racial lines, but the responses in 1989 revealed a diminishment in the perception of racial quality among both groups. Among whites, 39 percent reported that race relations were either excellent (2 percent) or good (37 percent) a decrease from 53 percent reported 10 years earlier. Similarly, only 36 percent of minorities thought race relations were either excellent (3 percent) or good (33 percent) a decline of 3 percentage points from 10 years earlier. 

In the 1989 survey, 16 percent of whites thought race relations were poor (14 percent) or very poor (2 percent) an increase of 6 percentage points from 10 years earlier. Among minorities, 26 percent now considered race relations to be poor (23 percent) or very poor (3 percent) an increase of 48 percent from the previous survey. Forty-two percent of whites in 1989 considered race relations fair, while 36 percent of minorities in 1989 considered race relations fair [3].

Additionally, the Dayton Daily News surveyed residents in the Miami Valley about the importance of race relations. In 1979, 80 percent of whites responded that race relations were either very important (30 percent) or important (50 percent). Ninety-six percent of minorities, however, responded that race relations were either very important (46 percent) or important (50 percent). Among whites, 17 percent felt race relations were unimportant, and another 3 percent had no response. Four percent of minorities stated that race relations were unimportant.   

Ten years later in 1989, as whites had a lower opinion of the quality of race relations in the Miami Valley, a larger percentage felt that race relations were important. In the 1989, 96 percent of whites virtually the same percentage as minorities felt that race relations were either very important (43 percent) or important (53 percent), an increase of 16 percentage points from 10 years earlier. The perception of the importance of race relations among minorities remained almost unchanged, the only significant change being that 18 percent more of minorities now considered race relations to be very important (64 percent up from 46 percent in 1979)[4] (see table 2.1). 

National Conference Survey of Race Relations 

In 1994 and again in 1996, the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) of the Dayton area conducted a survey of the racial and religious attitudes of residents in Montgomery County, Ohio. The purpose of the survey was to gain better understanding of the racial attitudes and relations of citizens living in the county. 

Questions were designed to assess the following: (1) racial and religious discrimination, (2) perceptions of equality of opportunity, (3) interracial feelings, (4) racial prejudice, (5) opinions about causes and solutions of racial tensions, and (6) willingness to work to reduce tensions. To gain understanding of why the racial attitudes, perceptions, and feelings mentioned above exist as they do, information was obtained about racial and religious group membership, racial and religious identification, age, region of childhood residence, current residence, childhood and current contact with people of other backgrounds, childhood and current family income, and educational level.

Respondents in the sample included 824 persons and represented all demographic groups in Montgomery County. Whites, who also included Appalachian whites, were 76 percent of the sample; African Americans were 14 percent; other minorities, who included American Indians, Latinos, and Asian Americans, were 5 percent; and others, who included biracial individuals and other categories, were 15 percent.[5] 

Jenni Roer, executive director of the Dayton region National Conference for Community and Justice, testified about the survey.

The purpose of the survey was to assess the nature and extent of racial discrimination in the Dayton area and to examine the feelings and attitudes that are thought to be associated with the discrimination. African Americans and other minorities experience more discrimination than do whites. . . . Of the African Americans surveyed, 59 percent said they had experienced discrimination in the past year. 

[Moreover], African Americans perceived discrimination in Montgomery County as a worse problem than elsewhere in the United States. . . . In terms of the severity of discrimination in Montgomery County compared to other metropolitan areas where a rating of five indicated people perceived discrimination much worse than in other areas and a rating of one indicated a perception that the discrimination climate was much better in Montgomery County. Of the African Americans surveyed, the average rating was 3.2. Of those in the white community surveyed, the average rating was 2.9.  

African Americans. . . . believe they have far fewer opportunities than whites in obtaining managerial promotions. Specifically, of the African Americans surveyed, 76 percent said there was less opportunity for managerial promotions versus 36 percent of those in the white community.  

Current contact with people from different cultures or of racial backgrounds were associated with lower bias against African Americans. Dayton, however, is one of the more segregated cities in the United States, which means the opportunity for people to meet and associate with people in other racial or cultural groups is decreased.

African Americans are more inclined to attribute misfortunes such as low income, lack of education, high unemployment, and single parent homes to situational factors, such as unequal opportunity, limited access to jobs, or financial pressures. In contrast whites tended to attribute the misfortunes of African Americans to personal factors, such as lack of motivation, values, or discipline.[6] 

The most common sources of racial discrimination reported against African Americans were from store clerks and salespeople (32.5 percent of respondents reporting discrimination), restaurant staff (23.7 percent of respondents reporting discrimination), work supervisors (23.7 percent of respondents reporting discrimination), and fellow employees (21.1 percent of respondents reporting discrimination). In contrast, in the employment setting just 2.4 percent of white respondents reported discrimination from their work supervisor and 3.3 percent from fellow employees.[7]  

The survey revealed a large gap between African Americans and whites in perceptions of equal opportunity. Most whites do not perceive that American society provides them with better opportunities than it does to African Americans. In all areas examined, more than 50 percent of the whites believed that African Americans had opportunities equal to themselves: quality education (71 percent), decent housing (57 percent), skilled labor jobs (71 percent), promotion into managerial jobs (62 percent), equal pay for equal work (77 percent), credit and mortgage loans (58 percent), equal treatment by the justice system (69 percent).

Fewer African American respondents rated their opportunities so positively. The percentage of African American respondents believing they had equal opportunity was less than 50 percent in all but one of the areas examined: decent housing (38 percent), skilled labor jobs (39 percent), promotion into managerial jobs (27 percent), equal pay for equal work (47 percent), credit and mortgage loans (26 percent), and equal treatment by the justice system (35 percent). Only in the area of quality education did most African Americans respondents (55 percent) believe that minorities had equal opportunity.[8] 

Judging from the perceptions of opportunities, the areas of greatest concern in the Dayton area are the opportunities for African Americans to obtain promotions into managerial jobs and to get credit loans and mortgages. In some respects, however, the perceived opportunities for African Americans and other minorities are better in Montgomery County than in the rest of the country. In particular, with regard to opportunities for quality education, quality housing, equal pay for the same work, fair treatment by police, and fair punishment under the law, local African Americans were more optimistic than their national counterparts. In addition, white respondents were also more inclined than their national counterparts to believe that equal pay for the same work, fair treatment by the police, and fair punishment under the law exist for both races.[9] 

Three measures of racial prejudice were measured in the survey: old-fashioned, modern white racism, and a measure of racial attitudes. Old-fashioned racism is defined as the more obvious and overt racism that endorses biased attitudes against minorities. Modern racism is defined as the more subtle and covert endorsement of attitudes that indirectly express biases against minorities.

White respondents with less current contact with African Americans showed more racism of both types. White respondents who identified more strongly with their religious group, regardless of which group, expressed less modern white racism than respondents who did not identify strongly with their religion. Respondents with higher current and childhood contact with other races displayed less prejudice. More interracial contact is clearly related to less prejudice.

The survey concluded that racial discrimination provokes substantial anger in its victims. Racial discrimination of all kinds was associated with more current interracial contact. Obviously, discrimination between races is only going to occur when there is interaction between those races. However, this finding does show that intergroup contact does not always produce positive outcomes. African Americans in particular believe that media treatment of racial issues is slanted against them. In focus group discussions, television, for example, was often cited for presenting African Americans in the worst situations while failing to present African Americans accomplishments.[10] 

Racial Segregation in Montgomery County 

The 1990 census recorded 573,809 residents in Montgomery County. Although predominantly white, the county has a large minority population, of which 101,750 (17.7 percent of the county population) are African American; 1,267 (0.2 percent of the county population) are American Indian; 5,269 (0.9 percent of the county population) are Asians and Pacific Islanders; and 4,153 (0.7 percent of the county population) are Latinos. 

African Americans are the dominant minority group living in Montgomery County, comprising 89 percent of all minorities in the county. No other minority group, i.e., American Indians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, or Latinos, is more than 1 percent of the county's population.   

The African American population finds itself concentrated within the city limits of Dayton, particularly on the west side of the city. Montgomery County is essentially a black and white county, with African Americans living in the city of Dayton's west and northwest districts. The population outside the city of Dayton is virtually all white, with the minority population outside the city limits exceeding 3 percent in only a few census blocks of Montgomery County. Figure 2.3 depicts Montgomery County and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base along with the percentage ranges of the minority population in the county by census block. 

Census updates show the population of Montgomery County to be relatively constant from 1990, but a decline in population for the city of Dayton a decline that has continued since 1960. There were an estimated 178,540 people living in Dayton in 1994. This figure is down from the city's peak population in 1960 of 262,000. Montgomery County's population peaked in 1970 at 608,000 and has now stabilized at about 572,000. Today, Dayton's population is only 30 percent of all the people living in the county. While this move out of central cities into suburbs is typical of the development patterns of many cities throughout the United States, it is particularly pronounced in the Dayton area.[11] 

Community Perspectives on Racial Attitudes and Employment Opportunities

At the Committee's factfinding meeting, four speakers testified about racial attitudes in Montgomery County. They included Phillip L. Parker, president of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce; Jessie O. Gooding, president of the Dayton chapter of the NAACP; Willie F. Walker, president of the Dayton Urban League; and Alexander Luque, president of the Greater Dayton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Parker told the Committee that the tight labor market in the Montgomery County area makes the implementation of equal employment opportunity a necessity because employers need all the qualified employees they can find to continue the economic upturn in the Miami Valley region.

There are over 40,000 available jobs in our region, which is not just Montgomery County but also includes Greene and Preble Counties. That means there is a lot of opportunity for people of all backgrounds to find good jobs. We need to make sure that we steer them towards those jobs, make those jobs available to them through job centers and any other sources we have, and make sure they have the skill sets and the education and the readiness that they are going to need to be successful with a local employer. 

The Chamber recently did some research on the topic of diversity. We learned that sometimes employers did not understand that once a [minority] person was hired, there may be cultural differences so that the person may not want to stay in that organization. I had not personally thought about this aspect of the issue. I had always simply thought you go out and hire making sure you give everyone equal opportunities. I did not think about the fact that a person can come into a particular job well-trained, well-educated, but of such a diverse background that many times the culture of that business might be such that the people that are there that come in new have a tendency not to be successful, because they do not seem to think that they are wanted or fit in. Somehow we have to change that whole paradigm. That is the part of diversity management we need to work on, that unsuccessful part where [minority] people with all the skills employers are looking for, why are they not being successful. 

The Chamber has been trying to do its part to promote more diversity. . . . One of these projects is a project to make ourselves, the Chamber, more cognizant of multicultural issues. We want to train ourselves in diversity issues, so that we can take this and train other businesses in how to understand cultural differences and make the very best of those cultural differences. 

To this end the Chamber has developed good working relationships with the Hispanic Chamber and with the African American population in this community. The Chamber also has relationships with the other growing minority populations, people from Asia and the Pacific rim and the American Indians in our community.[12] 

Jessie Gooding, president of the Dayton chapter of the NAACP, addressed three issues regarding racial attitudes in Montgomery County and the effect on equal employment opportunity for minorities. First, there is overt discrimination against minorities in the workplace. Second, qualifications and personnel procedures are adjusted for the higher professional and management positions, which tends to exclude minorities from these jobs. Third, he alleged that Federal and State agencies set up to combat discrimination in employment are not doing their job, essentially attempting to do only the minimum that is required.

The NAACP receives about 500 complaints per year, and two-thirds of them deal with employment issues. Most of the employment complaints are in the area of underemployment, termination and termination before the probationary period is over, and harassment on the job. . . . [Moreover] these complaints come from every kind of corporation, banks, big industries, small businesses, Federal Government, local government, hospitals, social agencies. . . . The NAACP is able to negotiate approximately 40 percent of these complaints successfully, that is the company is willing to discuss the matter with the NAACP and some type of resolution is reached. 

For many positions, the term qualified is a nebulous term. The NAACP receives numerous complaints from individuals who are well-qualified, some with higher degrees, but they still have difficulty in obtaining positions. . . . Many times the standard is established in such a way that it does not fit the job and serves as a deterrent for those they do not want to hire. It is a situation similar to the way things were done in the former days in Mississippi: a minority person had to count the bubbles in the soap before he could put it in the water. These problems include the Federal Government, the State government, and local government. The government agencies may be doing a better job in some respects than private industry, but the difference is small. [Moreover] the government agencies are moving backwards whereas private industry has moved forward.

The NAACP refers many of its complaints to agencies such as the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, which in turn refers some of them to Federal agencies such as the EEOC. Of the number of cases referred to these agencies, most all of the cases are returned with a finding of no probable cause, and in our opinion a lot of these cases have merit. It seems these agencies are using a rubber stamp to say no probable cause.[13] 

Willie Walker, president of the Dayton Urban League, discussed four issues regarding racial attitudes in Montgomery County and the effect on equal employment opportunity for minorities. First, there is the persistence of high unemployment in the African American community. Second, education has allowed a number of minorities to gain employment, but without education the prospects for employment are bleak. Third, a peculiarity of the job market is that the opportunities for employment are with the small employers, and that is a problem for minorities because historically the smaller firms have been more reluctant than the larger firms to hire African Americans. Fourth, he alleged that often artificial job requirements are in place, which are not essential to the performance of the job. Finally, he argues that government agencies set up to combat discrimination in employment are constrained by the recent restrictive decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, with the result that employers are virtually free to discriminate without penalty should they choose to do so. 

The primary business of the Urban League is to work in the area of employment. The Urban League places approximately 500 individuals in jobs annually. Since the 1960s the unemployment rate for African Americans has consistently been at least double, and sometimes triple, that of whites. In 1995, the latest statistics that we have available, the unemployment rate for African Americans is 12 percent as compared to a 3.9 percent unemployment rate for whites. . . .

The job opportunities are in small businesses, and therein lies the problem. Small businesses traditionally have not hired black applicants. Their hires have almost always been lily-white. Small entities are also entities that are not covered by most of the affirmative action rules; they escape them because of their low employment level.

There are a lot of artificial barriers set up by many companies that preclude real equal employment opportunity for minorities. One may say that a bachelor's degree is needed for a particular position, though that may not necessarily be the case. One may need a little training beyond high school or a year or two at a community college, but not the college degree.

Recent Supreme Court decisions have made changes to the Federal law. These changes have created a situation where an individual must have so much information and reach such a high burden of proof that it has created a barrier [to obtaining relief]. Individuals that are being discriminated against and rightfully have good charges have become frustrated enough so that they often will not even bring charges. These changes have allowed employers that do not desire to play fair and have an open playing field to go on and operate [in a discriminatory manner] without any concern of being called on the carpet for their actions. . . . In companies which have done well in providing equal employment opportunity, it has always been the case that it has been pushed from the top down to the managers and personnel directors.[14] 

Alexander Luque, president of the greater Dayton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, told the Committee that the Hispanic community in Montgomery County is very small in percentage terms and that problems of equal employment opportunity do not have the magnitude for Latinos that they have for African Americans.

As an organization our membership consists of 12 to 15 businesses. We also represent 60 to 66 individual affiliates and associate members that are not business owners, but that are Hispanic in heritage or work in a company that is non Hispanic. The organization serves as a clearing center of organizations for all the national issues with our members. We do networking and promote the interest of Hispanic business owners, and for the most part have not experienced or been involved with the issues of unemployment and underemployment as addressed by the Urban League and the NAACP.

The greater Dayton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has not and is not contacted by area businesses for any training, education, or employment opportunities for Hispanics. The one exception is once a bank contacted the organization looking specifically for an individual that could serve with their international banking division where the ability to speak a second language, in this case Spanish, was the requirement sought in an applicant.[15]