It was hardly a brief. If i used all the info he provided me, i would be speaking longer than the minutes assigned to bill himself. So i wont do that. I cut it down considerably. Bill has a 56page cv and its not packed with anything trivial. Ill come back to his scholarly contributions. Let me start with his titles, some, a few of his titles and honors. Sociologist William Julius wilson is the professor at Harvard University and at the time of his appointment in mean 95 National Media covered his addition to harvards dream team of africanamerican intellectuals including henry lewis gates jr. , a 20007 fellow. I met bill when he was at the university of chicago and a major force there as hes been everywhere. And i was a slightly younger scholar then and he was incredibly supportive as he is. Hes a mentor. He started his teaching and Research Career in 1965 at the university of massachusetts amherst. Shortly before completing his ph. D. In Sociology Graduate Program at Washington State university which was a Major Program at that time. Hes the recipient of 46 honorary degrees. Past president of the American Social logical association, mcdonald mcarthur prize fellow, institute of medicine, National Academy of education, british academy, and hes also the recipient of the National Medal of science, the highest scientific honor bestowed in the United States. Who you think us, certainly i dont know anybody in this room, but admit it if you have been, but who among us has been named among time most influential people in the snieUnited States was in 1996 . He has published three controversial seminal works of scholarship on different dimensions of race, classes and it is urban poor. The declining significance of race. The truly disadvantaged and when work disappears. I would add even though it hasnt quite reached that pinnacle yet, more than just race i would add to that list. Thats his most recent one. Bill and his work challenges liberal orthodoxy about causes of a permanent structural underclass in a u. S. Society as well as conservative views that attribute the state of poverty to a dependency on welfare or cultural deficiencies. Hes helped shape academic discourse and Public Policy debate, one of the requirements of the prize. Hes appeared frequently on television, testified before numerous congressional committees, et cetera, et cetera. Hes been advisers to mayors, to president s, and to lots of people in the political space. Notably it is documented that wilsons book the truly disadvantaged influence the philosophy and politics of the then chicago activists barack obama. And clinton told Time Magazine that wilsons books made me see race and poverty and the problems of the inner city in a different light. Now, heres a fact that i at least hadnt known before. The truly disadvantaged inspired much of the writing that went into season two of the series the wire. And his work was also a major influence on d. J. Vance in hillbilly eulogy. So it is into the public culture. The truly disadvantaged, the under class and public poll examine the flip side of rising black prosperity. Inner city blacks with poor training and limited education rising unemployment and welfare enrollment and shrinking prospects for getting out of poverty. The book is awesome in its combination of astute scholarship and great writing and it was largely written here which makes me like it even more, and one of the reasons im emphasizing it among his many books. Ill admit that some of his other books are just as important and in fact i still use all of them. But the link make this is one especially dear to me. The truly advantaged remains very relevant today and as i think bill probably agrees regrettably so. A second edition of the book published in 2012 he meticulously demonstrates how the conditions described in the First Edition are not kwadiffer 25 years later. His reflection on the responses yielded a new 60page afterword. I was going to bring the book and show it to you. That is a significant slcholarl skri contribution in itself. Bill is im almost done, and this was a cut of what mike had given me. Bill significant cut. Bill is a very senior scholar. A nice way for saying he is over 80. But he is still going strong and his contributions keep coming. In october, 2016, harvards hut Hutchins Center received a 10 million grant from its name sake foundation. The Research Project that it will fund led by wilson is a big data study of what he calls multidimensional inequality and cumulative adversity in the b s boston area. People subjected to simultaneous racial and economic hardships. It will dig deep into the lives of poor residents to better understand the inter connecting disadvantages that perpetuate poverty. The ultimate gat is to collect enough solid data. Speaking to the harvard gazette how do i fight pescism . How is the fight going . Its been a tough day. Were about to find out. Ladies and gentlemen, our 2017 sage award winner, william yul y julius wilson. [ applause ] boy, that was quite a introduction. You know, its a real honor to return to the center, caspus, and deliver this lecture and i am especially pleased that Sarah Miller Mccune is in the audience. You know, this is a frustrating period in our history and i thought that it would be good to take this opportunity to reflect on some of the issues regarding race in america that are very much on my mind. In november, shortly before the president ial election, i received an email from my harvard colleague henry lewis gates jr. , skip gates we call him as margaret pointed out, and he was also a member of the board of center for advanced studies and behavioral sciences. He sent me an email and he said that he had to do a coto to the hbo Television Series black america after mlk, Martin Luther king jr. , to bring it up to date. He asked me if i was optimistic or pessimistic about the future of our people. He said that he actually heard a guy on anderson coopers cnn news show say this is the worst time in the history of our people. And skip gates added this is surely not true, but that he would love to get my thoughts about this. And i said that i completely agree, that it cant be true. Anybody who says this is the worst time in the history of africanamericans does not have a sense of history. In general, nothing today compares with slavery or segregation. However, i also pointed out that it would be accurate to say that sense the death of Martin Luther king jr. , conditions for poor blacks have deteriorated while the conditions of betteroff blacks have indeed improved. And this is most clearly seen in the growing income in equality in the black community this was most clearly seen in the growing income in equality in the black community as reflected in the jeani ecoeshfficient, a measure that meshes zero, perfect equality, to one, maximum inequality. Now, this figure discloses the increasing Household Income in equality across the American Population as a whole rising from a low of 0. 39 in 1970 to 0. 48 in 2014. Follow the blue line. More interesting, however, is the high level of intra Group Inequality among black households. See the green line. Although the absolute level of black income is well below that of whites, blacks nonetheless display the most intragroup income inequality reaching a household jeannie index of 0. 49 followed by whites at 0. 47 and hispanics at 0. 45. Indeed one of the most significant changes since dr. Kings passing is a remarkable gain in income among more affluent blacks. When a adjusted for inflation, the percentage of black americans making at least 75,000 more than doubled from 1970 to 2014 to 21 . Those making 100,000 or more nearly kwquadrupled to 13 . White americans saw a less impressive increase from 11 to 26 . On the other hand, the percentage of black americans with incomes below 15,000 only declined by 4 points from 22 between 1970 and 2014. Now, Research Reveals that income inequality is related to income segregation. This next figure presents data on income segregation by race, a metropolitan areas with populations of more than 500,000. The source for that figure is a 2014 study by tkendra bishop an published by the russell sage foundation. This figure reveals that income segregation has grown rapidly in the last decade and particularly among black and hispanic families. And what is notable is that whereas black americans in 1970, thats the purpose line there, it is purple, right . I suffer from a little bit of color blindness. Whereas black americans in 1970, black families in 1970 recorded the least income segregation, follow the purple line, they now register the highest income segregation. Please note that we are talking here, we are talking here about res des residential segregation another way of talking about these trend lines is that they describe the extent to which the exposure of families to neighbors of the same race has changed over time. And although income segregation among black families grew considerably in the 1970s and 1980s, it grew even more rapidly from 2000 to 2009 after slightly declining in the 1990s. And when considering a persons life trajectory or life chances between pre it is important to note that today poor black families have fewer middle class, fewer black middle class neighbors than they had in 1970. Indeed the rising income segregation in the black community is driven both by the growth of affluent blacks and the deteriorating conditions of poor blacks which i will soon discuss. Now, these data update the earlier arguments that i developed in my book the declining significance of race First Published in 1978. And they remind me of a recent book by the harvard political scientist Robert Putnam entitled o our kids, the American Dream in crisis published in 2015 by simon and schuster. Although barriers to success remain powerful, they represent b burd burdensome impediments than they did in the 1950s. By contrast class barriers in America Today loom much larger than they did back then. And this is reflected not only in growing income and equality among all racial ethnic groups as you see here, but also increasing disparities and many other aspects of wellbeing. A accumulated wealth. Class segregation across neighborhoods. Quality of primary and secondary education. Enrollment in highly selective colleges. And even life expectancy. So one of the major underlying themes of the declining significance of race, the changing relative significant of race and class on a black persons life trajectory has been extended to all u. S. Racial and ethnic groups in putnams book. Now, i wish i could share these figures with donald trump, these figures on changes in the black class structure with donald trump who tends to talk about africanamericans as if they are a monolithic group that is a severely Disadvantaged Group that has made little progress. Indeed he is quoted as saying that, quote, black communities are in the worst shape ever, unquote. As if there is absolutely no good news to talk about in the black community. And since i mentioned trump, i should say that racial tensions and the expression of racial antagonism seem to have increased after he decided to run for the presidency. Which is probably one of the reasons, one of the rapes weaso the guy on cnn proclaimed that this is the worst time in the history of africanamericans. Now, this spike in racial assassinations should not come as a big surprise. We must understand that racial antagonisms are products of situations. Political situations. Economic situations. Social situations. Average citizens do not fully understand the complex forces that have increased. For example, their economic woes. The declines in real family income. The rise in wage d, industry relocation and so on. Economic insecurities create conditions that are breeding grounds, breeding grounds tensi especially if populace messages exploit these fears. When i was writing my book when work disappears published by canal in 1996, right wing messages were more concerned with controlling blacks than immigrants. Whereas donald trump and his supporters highlighted the negative traits of immigrants and their threat to american society. I pointed out in my 1996 book that supporters of welfare reform on the political right implicitly communicated the view that blacks were undeserving of special treatment from the government and that their high rates of welfare were due to personal short comings. Including a lack of work ethic. And just as conservative republicans use these contentious messages, these contentious messages in gaining control of the United States congress and the Congressional Election of 1994, so, too, did donald trump employ a similar set of messages applied mainly to immigrants in his successful president ial campaign of 2016. But let me get back to what i was saying about the good news and the bad news in the black community. And in order to keep things in proper perspective when talking about the relative gains of more privileged blacks, it is important not to overlook the continuing interracial disparities. For example, a report from the center for economic and policy Research Reveals that before the great recession, there was only a 1. 4 point difference in the unemployment gap between recent black and White College graduates age 22 to 27. However, in 2013 shortly after the economic downturn the gap had surged to a 7. 5 difference. Now, race is obviously a factor at play here. Because historically the periods during and immediately after downturns have adversely impacted blacks more than whites. And the issues involving race in these intergroup comparisons are complex. For example, aside from the roll of racial discrimination, whites with the same amount of schooling as blacks usually attend better high schools. And colleges. And therefore, have an edge when employers rely on such criteria. Especially during slack labor markets. That is periods of higher unemployment. Also researchers at the Computer Research center released data showing that the immediate financial wealth of white households in 2013 exceeded that of black households by almost 131,000. So despite sharp increases in income in equality and income segregation among blacks, the interracial disparities between blacks and white remain huge and must always be kept in mind when discussing and highlighting growing intraracial differences. That said, and i repeat, the conditions of poor blacks have deteriorated overall since the death of Martin Luther king jr. While those of betteroff blacks have improved. A blanket statement that things are worse now than ever before is totally unwarranted. But skip gates asked me also asked me if i am optimistic or pessimistic about the future of our people. So let me say that i am somewhat optimistic about the future of trained and educated blacks, and margaret, very pessimistic about the future of poorly educated blacks. And before i elaborate on why i am pessimistic about the conditions of poor blacks, let me partly qualify my optimism about the future of trained and educated blacks. And in so doing, i want to talk very briefly about the importance and continued need for affirmative action programs. Research suggests that the white backlash against racial entitlements such as affirmative action contributed to the governments retreat from antidiscrimination policies during the 1980s. Many of the gains that trained and educated blacks experienced in the 1970s were erased during the years of the reagan administration. Now, it should not be surprising that winning support for affirmative action programs would have an adverse effect on africanamericans in particular. For example, a number of studies have revealed significant differences in the family background and neighborhood environment of blacks and whites that are understated when standard measures of social economic state us are employed. Take for example the question of family background. Even when white parents and black parents report the same average income, white parents have substantially more assets than do black parents. And as i pointed out previously, whites with the same amount of schooling as blacks usually attend better high schools and colleges. Furthermore, childrens test scores are associated not only with a social and economic status of their parents, but they are also affected by the social and economic status of their grandparents. This means that it could take several generations before adjustments and Socio Economic inequality produce their sole benefits. If we were to rely solely on the standard criteria on universities like s. A. T. Scores, even many children from black middle income families would be denied admission in favor of middle income whites who are not weighed down by the accumulation of disadvantages that stem from racial restrictions and who therefore tend to score higher on these conventional tests. So far all these reasons, the success of younger educated blacks remains dependent on affirmative action programs whereby more flexible merit based criteria of evaluation are used to gauge potential to succeed. Now implicit in it argument, notice that i said flexible merit based criteria of evaluation. Implicit in this argument is the view that the remedy does not have to consist of numerical guidelines and quotas. The remedy can be a different set of criteria. A different set of evaluations criteria. New, more flexible yet merit based criteria that are more accurate than the conventional tests, engaging the actual potential of black americans to succeed. Criteria that capture such important attributes as per perseverance, interpersonal skills, reliability and leadership qualities. So the policy implications are obvious, ricespecific