ABSTRACT
Reinhold Niebuhr was a force in progressive politics in New York and a cofounder of the Americans for Democratic Action. His most famous book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, was an important contribution to social theory because of its then-stunning critique of the moralistic idea that good individuals filled with love for others could change the world. Gunnar Myrdal argues somewhat in the structural manner of Robert K. Merton’s earlier essay on anomie that race is a moral issue arising out of American economic history but against its moralistic culture. To the great majority of White Americans the Negro problem has distinctly negative connotations. Though our study includes economic, social, and political race relations, at bottom our problem is the moral dilemma of the American—the conflict between his moral valuations on various levels of consciousness and generality.
