Color Differences in the Afro-American Community and the Differences They Make

What is the role of skin-color differences in Afro-American society and politics? In recent years, there has been an upsurge of interest in the phenomenon, especially among historians (Morton, 1985). The purpose of this brief article is to analyze recent socialscience survey data on the significance of color stratification among Afro-Americans. It has long been argued that there are significant social-class differences between lightand darker-skin Blacks, as well as differences in social and political attitudes (Frazier, 1957, p. 18; Myrdal, 1944, 1962, pp. 695-700). In this article, we test the validity of this hypothesis about skin-color differences among Black Americans and the differences they make in terms of social and political attitudes.