Note: The original story was published September 25, 2024. It was updated on May 22, 2025 with supplemental information from a new survey.
On the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's death, there is much speculation about what, if anything, has changed for race relations in the U.S.
One in three (32%) Hispanic voters and 42% of Black voters say that most police officers and police departments are fundamentally racist. A Napolitan News survey found that just 13% of White voters agree. Given those gaps, it can be easy to see the frustration, particularly since the Trump Administration has decided to end Biden-era regulations on federal police oversight.
While it is difficult to measure change over any given period of time, in September of 2024, a Napolitan News Survey tried to put some concrete numbers to the progression of race relations.
In the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, the great Civil Rights leader cited a 1960s Harris poll showing that 88% of White Americans would object if their teenage child dated a Black American. Additionally, nearly 80% would mind if a close friend or family member married a Black American and 50% would object to having a Black person as a neighbor.
The September survey found encouraging results when asking those same questions. Today, only 16% of White Americans would be concerned if their child dated a Black American, only 11% would be concerned if a close friend or relative married a Black person, and only 5% would be offended by having a Black neighbor.
In contrast, just 48% of Republicans and 52% of Democrats said that they'd prefer to live in a neighborhood with neighbors from both parties. The new polarization is political, not racial.
In a May 2025 survey, 71% of voters said race relations have improved since the 1960s. Sixty-four percent (64%) expect them to improve over the next 20 years. Only 42% of voters believe relationship between the two major political parties will improve in that timeframe.
Martin Luther King, Jr., cautioned against both the overly negative view of saying no progress had been made and the overly positive view that the fight for equality had been won. Nineteen percent (19%) believe we have already reached the point where people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Sixteen percent (16%) say we will never reach that point.
However, half (50%) of voters express some version of King's perspective on race: we're not there yet- and George Floyd's death is a painful reminder of that reality- but we will get there someday. Fifty-one percent (51%) of white voters and 47% of black voters agree.
Both surveys of 1,000 Registered Voters were conducted online by Scott Rasmussen on September 18-19, 2024 and May 19-20, 2025. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1.
