PROTEST AND PREJUDICE

The subtitle here is ""A Study of Belief in the Black Community,"" and according to Bayard Rustin's foreword, this is a book that ""tells it like it is."" The work was sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and conducted by the Survey Research Center of Berkeley. It is the third volume in a series entitled Patterns of American Prejudice, which in turn is part of the University of California's Five-Year Study of Anti-Semitism in the U.S. Mr. Marx's primary concern, however, is not with Negro attitudes towards Jews, but rather their feelings about whites in general, civil rights, and integration. The basis was 1,119 one-hour interviews with Negro adults, selected from across the nation through ""modified probability procedures. From these interviews, 124 tables and charts have been drawn up, categorizing, opinion according to age, sex, income, region, etc., The findings, in brief, are that extremism and separatism have been grossly exaggerated; there is less anti-Semitism among Negroes than among non-Jewish whites, asserts this author, and moderate leadership, as represented by Roy Wilkins Whitney Young, or Dr. King, still retains overwhelming support. The critical question for most readers will be: is this ""like it is,"" or ""like it was""? These interviews, after all, were conducted in late 1964 --before the death of Malcolm X or the shooting of James Meredith, before the cry ""Black Power!"" became a household word. This is certainly sociology at its most responsible level, but doubts must remain as to whether it truly reflects the current reality.