ABSTRACT
A major characteristic of American contemporary life is the pushing and pulling associated with the status of ethnic minorities in general and of blacks or Afro-Americans, in particular. So pervasive have been the issues of race and color in the United States that entire institutions and legal sanctions were created to constrain the cultural, educational, social, economic, and political development of Afro-Americans. These constraining strategies were almost classic in their ability to develop in a large group of black people the feeling that they were inferior and to instill in many white Americans that this feeling of inferiority was a correct perception for blacks to hold of themselves.
