The Nature of Prejudice influenced the 1954 Brown v. Board ruling

Evidence

Gordon W. Allport died in 1967 at the age of 70. We did not know him personally. We are not his students nor are we students of his students. However, his impact on us, through The Nature of Prejudice, has been profound. We are not alone. Thomas Pettigrew, who was one of Allport’s students, described The Nature of Prejudice as “his most explicit attempt to influence public opinion” (Pettigrew, 1999, p. 415). And the volume did attract significant public attention at the time. In the Foreword to the 25th anniversary edition of The Nature of Prejudice, Pettigrew (1979) recounted, “Gordon Allport’s book was both a harbinger and a reflection of the thinking that went into the Supreme Court decision [Brown v. Board of Education, 1954]. The Nature of Prejudice is a remarkable mixture of careful scholarship and humane values” (pp. xii–xiv). — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 154

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing interest in how scholarly claims about prejudice (contact theory, psychological research) shaped legal rulings on segregation — parallels civil-rights era use of social science.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 154