ABSTRACT
A study conducted in 1963 demonstrated that 10 common color names possessed highly similar connotations among Caucasian and Negro college students, with white viewed as "good," "weak," and "active," and black viewed as relatively "bad," "strong," and "passive." The present study was conducted in 1969 to determine whether the development of the "black identity" movement in the middle and late 1960s was paralleled by changes in the connotative meaning of black and white. It was found that for Negro subjects, black had become more positive (good) and more active, while white had become less positive and less active, with these changes being most pronounced among those students most strongly committed to black separatism. Among the Caucasian subjects tested, no changes were found in the meanings of black, white, or any other color name across the 6-year period. The differences between the two racial groups are interpreted in terms of the differential effect of the black identity movement on the two groups tested.
