ABSTRACT
American foreign policy, where it touches upon nonwhite peoples in the world, has been singularly marked by “white imperialism” viewed in political terms and “benevolent racism” viewed in ethnic terms. As the sociologist and historian look back upon the relative ease with which successive waves of white immigrants have been assimilated into the mainstream of American life, they are confronted with the fact of the nonassimilation of American blacks. The romantic saga of Captain John Rolfe and Pocahontas is a far cry from the subsequent life experiences of America’s largest and most disenfranchised ethnic minority—the American Indian. The black studies programs which are arising on many college campuses, mainly through their insistence and initiative, serve as cultural and educational vehicles for linking past and present aspirations of the American Negro with those of black people in Africa and the Caribbean.
