In 1944, the same year King went to Connecticut, the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal published An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy. The book was the most detailed examination of American racism ever compiled by a white man, based on research performed before the United States entered World War II. Nearly 1,500 pages long, the book described what Black Americans knew but couldn’t quantify: the disparities between the races in infant mortality, employment, education, and political representation.
