A scale of black power sentiment.

Abstract

Currently, civil strife and tension between Negroes and whites and differences in policy among civil rights groups point to the need for a measure of the attirude. Preliminary work on our Black Power Sentiment scale (BPS) uses 58 statements covering a wide variety of social, political, and economic issues on which black power advocates and more moderate civil rights spokesmen currently disagree (1, 2, 3). The items are presented in an agreem-disagree format; half are worded in reverse.' A preliminary validation of the BPS was made by securing two criterion groups of Negro respondents. In Group I (pro-black power) were 5 staff members of the Congress on Racial Equality's (CORE) New York City office and 1 local college student who is a member of the Black Muslims. In Group I1 (anti-black power) were 9 staff members of Marcin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Atlanta, Georgia. CORE and SCLC respondents were recruited by their organization's officials who had volunteered to help usa Each respondent returned his unsigned questionnaire directly to us by mail. When BPS total scale scores (possible range 0-58) were compared, means of Groups I and I1 differed strongly (p < ,001, one-tailed s test). Furthermore, there was no overlap of individual scores made by the criterion groups. Using the criterion-group data, internal consistency of the scale is .78 (Cronbach's &ha). Taken together these results suggest that the scale is a valid measure of black power sentiment. It is possible, however, that the results reflect merely regional differences rather than ideological ones. Volunteer respondents are difficult to find, espec~ally among black power advocates. Nonetheless, we intend to find additional and larger criterion group samples to validate further the BPS. Recently, in an effort to shorten the BPS and increase its reliability, the most discriminating items of the original form were assembled for a 20-item scale. This shorter form has an internal consistency of .82 as measured on a local sample of Negro college