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The Study of Man: History with a Present Meaning
- Abstract
The history of American race relations provides an almost perfect example of the process by which popular myths are created to permit the simultaneous existence of two apparently incompatible elements of a social complex; one of these elements is usually an aspect of the social structure and the other an aspect of ideology. Since changes are now occurring in both elements of the race relations complex—in social structure, for example, toward industrialization and away from agriculture in the South, and in ideology toward, among other things, a belief that America’s position in world affairs requires the enforcing of democratic principles at home—the older myths are no longer “socially necessary.” They are therefore being peeled away—first by historians, then by schoolteachers and public leaders—thereby exposing facts of American history that have been hidden from the mass of the American people for many years.
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