Atlanta Daily World

Poll Shows Races Have
Equal Potentialities
DENVER (ANP) A nationwide survey of white attitudes toward Negro intelligence finds that a majority of the white public believes that, at least in reading, Negroes are on a par with whites, according to results just issued by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Denver.

A substantial minority of white people, however, rate Negroes' intelligence as inferior, while the remaining few say they don't know.

A significant shift of opinion on the point has taken place during the past two years, to judge by comparisons between the present survey and one taken in 1944 when the identical NORC question found only 44% of whites giving Negroes credit for equal ability to learn. At that time a 48% plurality believed that, even given the same education, Negroes could not learn as easily as whites.

On both surveys, NORC interviewers asked a coast-to-coast cross section of white people in walks of life:
In general, do you think Negroes are as intelligent as white people? That is, can they learn just as well if they are given the same education?

	1946	1944
Yes	53%	44%
No	40	48
Don't know	7	8

When on the more recent survey, Negroes in all parts of the country were asked the same question, 92% believed the two races had equal potentialities. Upholding this viewpoint are 61% of northern whites but - as might be expected - only 30% of southern whites.

Information on the learning potentialities of Negroes appears to influence to a considerable extent white attitudes toward Negroes in the economic and social spheres. For example, among whites who believe members of the two races are equally intelligent, 57% think Negroes should have equal employment opportunities with whites. Of whites who think that Negroes are inescapably less intelligent, only 35% would grant Negroes the same chances as whites to get any job.

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY
Most psychologists and other scientists agree with the proposition that, when given equal opportunities, Negroes and whites rate about the same on standard intelligence tests. Learning ability, experts say, can be influenced not only by heredity but by educational opportunities and by such environmental factors as housing, diet, and family income. Some tests have shown that, not only do northern whites score higher than southern whites and northern Negroes higher than southern Negroes, but northern Negroes make slightly higher scores than southern whites.