as being quite different. This is true, but the change is not complete. The Civil Rights Movement has made great changes in American society, but it has not eliminated racism. It has pushed it underground for the most part, but many of the attitudes remain powerful. Though the overt racism of the past has become much less acceptable (though it has not disappeared altogether), the prevalent form of racism today is institutional racism. The concept of institutional racism was first discussed systematically by Charles Hamilton and Stokeley Carmichael in the 1960s. In this conception, the authors contrasted individual racism, illustrated by a small band of white terrorists bombing a church, with institutional racism, illustrated by the practices leading to many black children dying each year because of inadequate food, medical facilities, and shelter (Feagin and Feagin, 1986, 12-13).
The idea of institutional racism helps explain how racial discrimination can be continued in a society which fundamentally claims to reject racism. Some theorists be
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