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The article discusses issues related to subjective powerlessness in the U.S. The paper focuses on changes since 1952 in citizen efficacy or feelings of control over government for various sub-groups in the U.S. population such as blacks, blue collar workers, Southerners, Jews, young and old people. As with most issues in the study of social change, there is widespread disagreement on trends in citizen efficacy for industrial societies such as the U.S. Most theory predicts trends in objective powerlessness, rather than subjective powerlessness, although it is possible that trends in objective powerlessness do not match trends in subjective powerlessness. Within the U.S. at each point of observation, powerlessness does not vary much by stratum, except when education and race are used as indicators. And within the white population, some of the differences are heavily explained by educational differentials. It therefore seems fair to conclude that white subordinate interest groups are not oriented toward government as a result of what would seem to be objective powerlessness but more on the basis of their educational achievement.

The article studies relative deprivation and participation in the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement, like many social movements, incorporated several sub-movements which utilized different types of tactics. It incorporates a variety of different patterns. This paper explores the extent to which different patterns of relative deprivation may be differentially associated with a variety of movement tactics. Relative deprivation may be one state of mind which motivates participation in social movements. Reference group comparisons may result in feelings of either relative deprivation or relative satisfaction depending upon the reference group selected. It has been suggested that black participation in the civil rights movement was a consequence of an inability to achieve at a level commensurate with societally induced aspirations. Social movements undergo changes over time in terms of goals, tactics, population base contributing support, and reactions of the wider society. These variables influence participation. It may well be the case that different types of relative deprivation are associated with participation at different stages of a movement.

The article presents a comment of the author on his paper related to some readjustments of the Negro family in 1944 and 1970. The nature of the reconsideration is obviously based upon the changes that have occurred in American race relations since the work was first published. The passage of time has not only allowed for a change of mind, but has compelled it. Therefore, his purpose here is to state succinctly how he viewed Negro family readjustment in the first instance and how he views it now. The advantage that he has in taking this approach is that an occasion for readjustment, as it existed then, also exists now. In 1944, his general concern was with the degree and manner in which an institution accommodates to new circumstances imposed upon it by the external environment in which it is enmeshed. Somehow he had the feeling that the methodological implications of the Spencerian organismic analogy could not be absolutely ignored. He felt that, like forms of organic life, an institution has a vital quality that facilitates its structural rearrangements when faced by an external condition that threatens its internal stability.