leadership structure of its own that was only dimly understood by the
white men of prominence. Indeed, the few Negroes who were oc-
casionally consulted by the white leaders exaggerated their position and
power--their influence was partly due to the mere fact that the whites
did consult them.

About half a dozen of the leaders specialized in liaison work with
state and national power figures. They worked in the shadows of the
lobbies where so much legislative and administrative work gets done.
Hunter told me that he is now studying the interactions among the
leaders who link local power groups into national networks. He be-
lieves that some three to four hundred men are the active and influential
persons that make up the core of the national power structure. But as
was pointed out in the preceding chapter (and as Hunter himself
wrote), it would be a mistake to assume that there is a single power
pyramid in each community, and a single power pyramid in the coun-
try as a whole. There are shifting groups that organize and dissolve
around specific issues. Yet it does seem that the same faces appear very
often in one group after another. Certainly the smaller the community,
the more likely it is that the same persons will dominate all of the more
important activities. Their interaction network, which often combines
recreation and business, is the place where the many interests in the
community represented by large formal organizations come together for
compromise and adjustment. In Hunter's study it was obvious that the
major active interests were business interests. Although there were two
labor leaders, a couple of politicians, and some Negro leaders who
presumably spoke for mass interests and had some connections with
the top group, the interests of the ordinary folk were represented mainly
through the feelings of noblesse oblige of the business leaders.

Feelings of superiority and inferiority are acted out when men and
women meet to work and play. Thus direct observations of interaction
and interpretations of verbal prestige rankings are different means of
studying the same basic phenomena.

The evidence is clear: persons of similar prestige are likely to as-
sociate with one another in those recreational situations where free
choice is available. The differential costs of the activities engaged in at
different status levels, and the different educations, habits, and values
that characterize people at the separate prestige levels make people more
comfortable when interacting with their own kind. Furthermore, the
ecological patterning of cities puts people of similar buying power to-
gether as neighbors.

-153-