1987

Tawana Brawley, a 15-year-old Black girl from Wappingers Falls, New York, is found in a garbage bag, her body smeared with feces and racial slurs. She claims six white men, including law enforcement officers, raped her. Al Sharpton, Alton Maddox, and C. Vernon Mason take up her case. A grand jury concludes in October 1988 that the attack was fabricated, but the case inflames debates about race and the justice system.

Jon Lester and Scott Kern are convicted of second-degree manslaughter and assault for the Howard Beach attack on Michael Griffith. Lester receives 10 to 30 years. Special prosecutor Charles Hynes wins the convictions after the original Queens DA recused himself. The case establishes that racially motivated mob violence in New York can lead to serious convictions.

In United States v. Paradise, the Supreme Court upholds 5–4 a one-for-one promotion quota for Black Alabama state troopers, required because the department had promoted no Black officers in its 37-year history. The ruling, written by Justice William Brennan, affirms race-conscious remedies for proven systematic discrimination.

University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson publishes The Truly Disadvantaged, arguing that deindustrialization and middle-class Black flight have created a concentrated, isolated urban underclass. The book challenges both conservative and liberal orthodoxies and shapes policy debates for a decade. Wilson documents how structural economic changes, not culture alone, produce concentrated Black poverty.

University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson publishes The Truly Disadvantaged, arguing deindustrialization and middle-class Black flight have created a concentrated urban underclass. The book challenges both conservative and liberal orthodoxies and documents how structural economic changes, not culture alone, produce concentrated Black poverty.

Yvonne Smallwood, a 27-year-old Black woman, dies after being beaten by New York City police officers during a dispute in the Bronx. Officers had been called about an altercation; Smallwood was struck repeatedly. Her death generates protests and calls for a civilian review board. The officers involved face no criminal charges.

In Johnson v. Transportation Agency of Santa Clara County, the Supreme Court rules 6–3 that employers may voluntarily consider race and sex in promotions to remedy statistical imbalances. The decision extends Weber and affirms voluntary affirmative action programs in the public sector, a significant victory for civil rights advocates.

In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that even rigorous statistical proof of racial bias in the death penalty could not establish discrimination — a decision Michelle Alexander calls "the Dred Scott of our era" for closing the courthouse door to claims of systemic racism.