ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with some of the major contributions to the study of race relations in the United States between 1930 and 1950. John Dollard had undergone psycho-analysis in Berlin. He was the first writer to apply Freudian interpretations to American race relations in a persuasive full-length study that could be appreciated by the general reader. He transformed the significance of the concept of prejudice and the study of race relations could never be the same again. The structural interpretations Dollard borrowed from Lloyd Warner scheme are much more valuable. He argued that in relations with middle-class blacks, middle-class white people combined class loyalty and caste hostility. In Warner’s caste and class analysis a key element is the definition of situations. Warner’s use of the expression ‘colour-caste’ has attracted criticism, most notably from Cox who maintained, very rightly, that race relations in the South were fundamentally different from the relations of Hindu caste.
