Psychologist Thomas Pettigrew Interview (1967)

thank you. Her support looks like the support of anti-Negro candidates, white candidates throughout the United States and particularly in the South, the data I'm most familiar with. It looks like for instance, George... the supporters for George Wallace when he was running in Alabama or whether he's in a presidential primary as he was in 1964 in Wisconsin, Indiana and Maryland. Put briefly, Mrs. Hicks' supporters, when compared to those who tend to vote against her, are more poorly educated. They have lower incomes, annual incomes, and they tend to be older to some extent; also they tend more often to be female than male. Why do you suppose they vote for her? I've already suggested what I believe is the basic reason and that is racism. But just to say racism and that her supporters are basically anti- Negro, is I think too simple to leave it there. These people, most of

them anyway, are in serious, what we would like to call in social science "status threat," and now they see the Negro urging radical changes in the society -- radical as they see them -- and threatening to overtake them in terms of status. This is a very threatening thing. As you know, Mrs. Hicks makes quite a fetish out of neighborhood schools. This is not a concept that has tremendous significance for many of her supporters. 75 percent of her voters for the school committee, for instance, in 1965 did not send children to the public school, nor were they going to; they didn't have young children. Now this means they could vote for her with little worry about the Boston school system. And so they voted a protest, essentially. The protest was about many things but one of the basic things was neighborhood integration. The key word is "neighborhood."

The adjective, not the noun "school." They're much less interested in the schools than they are in racial separation by residence. And she plays on that like a harp. Over and over repeating the word "neighborhood." I believe that is they key factor in her support. Good morning. Nice to see you.