The lack of national concern for the well-being of the black race has produced the young black militants to whom US society is reacting today. They represent the children who were promised equal educational opportunity in 1954 and are aware that only token efforts have been made since that time to effectively desegregate schools. An alliance of black and white leadership is needed to take a positive view of black militancy. Universities and school systems should find ways of involving the most resourceful of the dissident blacks where talent and drive are needed. Every school of education should prepare its own Green Beret squads and curriculum specialists, and acquaint teachers with the mode of life of disadvantaged youth. While militant chants and slogans continue in a raging ideological battle, high school students should be sorted for training at integrated universities, and the efforts of Negro colleges should be nurtured and supported to move 150,000 young people toward fruitful careers. The ideologues will have to revise their positions if the facts are changing all of the time. Such leadership would help to change the country's hostile mood to one of mutual respect between the races, in which black ethnocentricity does not exclude full participation in the country's social, economic, political and cultural structure. The new black identity would thrive and at the same time the notion of a common national destiny for all people would be preserved. (WM)