The Economic Impact of Racial Prejudice

I was wondering how much prejudice against blacks has cost the United States economically. A fast Google search discovered this article which suggests that the civil rights movement of the 60's and 70's economically benefited the blacks in the South and the South as a whole. I would guess that an economic improvement in the South probably had positive externalities for the rest of the country, as the stronger buying power down South resulted in larger markets for the rest of the nation.

Today we still have a black underclass, which has millions of people who are not producing as much per capita as the average American, and we are dealing with a lot of crime from and imprisonment of the members of that underclass. If there was less prejudice, there might have been both a more effective program to reintegrate blacks who had suffered centuries of discrimination (not to mention slavery) into the larger economy, and more and better economic opportunities for the black population.

Still there has been a lot of progress. So maybe the nation should be terming the leaders of the civil rights movement and the effort to overcome prejudice as "social entrepreneurs" in recognition of the economic benefits their successes have brought us all.