Nation: Professor Gunnar Myrdal Returns to the South

Twenty-six years ago, with the publication of An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, Swedish Social Scientist Gunnar Myrdal forced America's face to a mirror. The image, drawn with the most exhaustive research ever done into the lives of blacks in the U.S., was of shocking racism. It was tempered only by Myrdal's declaration of faith in a nation he admiredĀ­that Americans were fundamentally decent and moral, and would overcome racism by working toward their ideals.

Myrdal, now 71 but as active a scholar as ever, last week completed a brief...

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