The Black Identity Crisis

Abstract

“Integration in the past has been understood as assimilation into a white society on white terms; a condition that implies the superiority of the white society. School integration is integration of Negro children into white schools and not integration of white children into Negro schools. Today, racial protest seeks a goal more complex than integration into a white society; it seeks a goal in terms of a pluralist society in which the Negro may retain his identity as a Negro. … Those whites who wish to assist should do so by working in their own community and not by attempting to influence the decision-making process of the black community.”