Racial discrimination in Russia continues to this day, albeit more subtle and less institutional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_Soviet_Union
https://gal-dem.com/why-romanticising-the-soviet-union-obscu...
He spent years not understanding why he couldn't get a job despite being a decorated veteran and having several valuable and in-demand manufacturing skills. He left the south for detroit and fared no better there, eventually coming back. The FBI was proactively contacting every employer he talked to telling them not to hire him.
He later became the kind of figure the FBI would unquestionably be keeping an eye on. But at that time he was in his 20s and his only activism had been trying to get the local taxpayer-funded pool integrated because black children were regularly drowning in the rivers.
Imagine that.