Race Relations / Gallup Historical Polls
It looks to me like we were doing okay well into Pres. Obama's 2nd term. It also looks like blacks thought it was worse that most other people prior to the last year but now think it's a little better than most other people.
A drop-off from the 70s to the mid-40s in such a short period of time is pretty dramatic. But the latest number on that graph is from Jan 2015. That was 18 months ago. Although not charted on the graph, a couple of the questions in the article have more recent responses.
For instance, one of the questions was "How about the state of race relations?"
for the responses indicting to "somewhat satisfied" the range from 2001-2014 was 39%-45%. But it dropped to 24% in 2015 and 01/2016. As well, the "very satisfied" went from 8% and 10% prior to 2015 and dropped to 6% in 2015 and 3% in 2016.
That's a significant decline in "satisfied". Not an improvement.
For the responses indicating to "very disappointed" the range from 2001-2014 was 10% - 14%, the mode (most common) being 13% and 14%. But it jumped to 30% in 2015 and increased to 34% as of their 01/2016 poll.
The numbers for "somewhat disappointed" didn't change significantly mostly 26-28% before vs 30% and 32% in 2015 and 2016. But I would guess there's relatively little overlap in the composition of that group in 2016 vs the periods prior to 2015. It's apparent that lots of people moved in from "somewhat satisfied" and lots of people moved out to one of the "dissatisfied" categories.
Regardless of the reasons why, it's apparent that these conditions have gotten much worse just in the last 2-3 years, not better. Call it a success or progress if you want, but that's not an assertion that the poll numbers support.