Only 35 percent of the black men who enrolled in NCAA Division I schools in 1996 graduated within six years. White men, on the other hand, graduated at a rate of 59 percent; Hispanic men, 46 percent; American Indian men, 41 percent; and black women, 45 percent.

Black men make up 41 percent of the inmates in federal state, and local prison, but black men are only 4 percent of all students in American institutions of higher education."

28% of black women said they had spent over $200 on clothes in the past month, compared with 14% of Latinas and 12% of Caucasian women.

Black men have experienced a startling reversal of fortunes in the span of one generation. In 1980 African American men enrolled in higher education outnumbered those incarcerated by a quarter million. In 2000, black men behind bars exceeded those on campus by 188,000.

U.S. Department of Justice statistics from 2001 indicate that 179,500 black men ages 18-24 are in prison and jail. Therefore, in the 18-24 age group, the college/imprisoned ratio for black males is 2.6 to one.

African-American have the highest death rate from breast cancer and are more likely to be diagnosed with a later stage of breast cancer than White women.

In the age groups, 30-54 and 55-69 years, African-American women have the highest death rate from breast cancer, followed by Hawaiian women, and white non-Hispanic women. However, in the 70 year old age group, the death rate from breast cancer for white women is higher than for African –American. the number of Black married couples is only half the number of married Whites, and the situation is getting worse. In 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, more than 70 percent of all Black families were headed by married couples. In 2002 that number was 48 percent.

An even more alarming statistic is the increase in the number of both Black men and women who have never been married. Nearly 45 percent of Black men have never married and 42 percent of Black women have never married. More to the point, an increasing number of Black women will never get married. The percentage of Black women who are married declined from 62 percent to 31 percent between 1950 and 2002