There's a fairly large literature in labor economics on discrimination in the labor market. Reductive summary of consensus'ish opinion going back to 1996 [1]:
1) Very large gaps between average wages of whites and blacks
2) Controlling for ability* erases almost all the disparity
3) White and black infants have same distribution of ability
4) Large disparity in ability develops between white and blacks by age 18
Disparities between whites and blacks seem to be more a product of poverty rather than bigoted employers. There is obviously more to racism than employment and wages, but this is a significant. To be clear, this is not to hand wave away a serious social problem, but rather to focus attention on the actual causes of it. If it were simply racism, there are easier solutions. Just appeal to the greed of rapacious capitalists: perfectly qualified workers from visible minorities would be underpriced wrt the majority. If instead differences in wages instead reflect differences in skills (from crappy schools, dysfunctional family environments, etc), then the problem is a little more insoluble.
* Ability is obviously a fuzzy concept. "ability" here means a score on a version of the Defense Dept's ability test from the 80's (the National Longitudinal Study of Youth). Results hold up pretty well with different measures though.
[1] https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v104y1996i5p869-95.html
More recent summary from Roland Fryer (abstract alone is good): http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/racial_inequali...
* Ability is obviously a fuzzy concept. "ability" here means a score on a version of the Defense Dept's ability test from the 80's (the National Longitudinal Study of Youth). Results hold up pretty well with different measures though.