![US-POLICE-CRIME-RACISM US-POLICE-CRIME-RACIPeople take part in a rally on April 29, 2015 at Union Square in New York, held in solidarity with demonstrators in Baltimore, Maryland demanding justice for an African-American man who died of severe spinal injuries sustained in police custody. SM](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/black-lives-matter.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
Nearly 60% of Americans believe the country needs to change to achieve equal rights for African Americans, according to a new report from Pew Research Center. That’s more than a 10% increase since 2009.
The survey marks the latest in a string of evidence suggesting that the racial tensions of the last year, generated in part by highly-publicized incidents of police brutality, have caused Americans to reconsider their views on race. Only 47% of Americans said the country needed to change to achieve equal rights in 2009. The figure remained fairly steady until shooting up this past year.
Nearly everyone surveyed, 94% of respondents, said that racism remains a problem, even if only a small one. But respondents expressed vastly different beliefs across demographic groups about whether changes should be made to address that problem. More than 50% of white Americans now say that the country should change to help achieve equal rights, up from just under 40% as recently as last year. That number pales in comparison to the 86% of Black Americans who say they support such changes.
Just over 40% of Republicans said more needs to be done to promote racial equality, compared with nearly 80% of Democrats.
Pew surveyed 2,002 adults living across the country July 14-20 for this report.
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Write to Justin Worland at justin.worland@time.com