The Political Socialization of the American Negro

Abstract

American Negroes perforce "came to terms" his torically with a locality-circumscribed political world. A huge northward migration has occurred, and the younger Negro has gradually become aware of metropolitan as well as national American political processes as they affect him. Opinion-sur vey evidence reveals clear contrasts by region and generation in Negro attitudes toward public officials; it also suggests that Negro evaluations of political opportunity sometimes approach parity with matched counterpart groups of underprivileged whites. A shift has also occurred in Negro leadership, away from accommodationist civic dignitaries, tapped by whites as liaison spokesmen for the Negro subcommunity, to Negro pro fessional politicians, negotiating from positions of pivotal elec toral power both in Southern localities and Northern metro politan districts. The middle-class leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Urban League, moreover, has been supplemented and jostled into new militancy by the direct-action protest or ganizers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC). Full and mundane possession by Negroes of a reformulated place in the American polity depends, however, on the proliferation of community-level opportunities to learn new skills and roles in civic affairs.