Protest Against the Political Status of the Negro

The complexity of the many interrelated prob lems making up what is popularly termed "the Negro problem" creates difficulties both for adequate analysis and social action. The usual solution is to segmentize the problems, in the manner done by this symposium, which runs the risk of partial analysis and implicit single-cause explanations and remedies. Negro political rights is a prime example of this risk because of the widespread agreement on the criticality of voting rights to Negro achievement of equal status. The argument on voting rights has "psychological" and "practical" dimensions. On the former, it is here agreed that Negro possession of political rights is a necessary precondition of his full acceptance as an equal citizen. On the latter, the attempt is made to demonstrate that, for a wide variety of reasons, Negro political influence will be neither as extensive nor as facilitative of the solution of other Negro problems as the proponents of Negro voting rights assume. Adoption of a more modest view of the capabilities of Negro political power should be helpful to the planning of Negro strategy and should minimize the risk of civil disorder attendant upon a growing Negro disillusionment with alleged inadequacies of working through the political process.