ABSTRACT
To the white American the Negro problem has taken on a significance greater than it has ever had since the Civil War. The gradual destruction of the popular theory behind race prejudice is the most important of all social trends in the field of interracial relations. The whites were on the way, even before the War, to lose their caste theory and their complacency in the face of obvious abuses of the American Creed. In the North the Creed was strong enough long before the War to secure for the Negro practically unabridged civic equality in all his relations with public authority, whether it was in voting, before the courts, in the school system or as a relief recipient. The North will probably not become more considerate if the interracial tension in the South gets out of hand and results in bloody clashes. Americans in general are concerned with the task of making a constructive peace after the War.
