(WTTW News)

The Black unemployment rate hit a record low of 5% last month, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The news comes three years after the rate spiked to nearly 17% during the early months of the pandemic.

At a protest in Logan Square on April 16, 2021, Ana Solano holds a sign reading “Justice 4 Adam!” with a photograph of Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old boy fatally shot by a Chicago police officer in the Little Village neighborhood March 29, 2021. (Evan Garcia / WTTW News)

As the country awaits an outcome in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, the manner in which police operate in Black and Latino communities – in particular, how they use deadly force — remains very much in the spotlight.