Henceforward, Europeans would be increasingly divided into two opposed views: one, the traditional, tending to hold that Africa had never possessed cultures that were worthy of respect or even of serious investigation; the other, the scientific, tending to argue the reverse (Davidson 100).

American society developed its own racist attitudes in response to the black population freed after the Civil War. The position of blacks in America today remains an issue that is much argued. After almost four decades of the Civil Rights movement, the degree of change in the black community, while real and noticeable, also remains inadequate. Blacks have achieved positions of power, are less subject to institutional racism than in the past, and have redress in the courts and even in the court of public opinion that was once denied them. Yet, the black community remains dis

Davidson, Basil. The African Slave Trade. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1961.

But every book I picked up had few sentences which didn't contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese (Haley 171).

This family saga hints at some of the history of the family, and Don Corleone is presented as the immigrant who came to America and made his fortune through strength and ruthlessness, creating this business for his sons. Family is a vital aspect of his thinking and of the type of business he enters, and it is significant that the criminal organization is itself called a family, involves members of the Don's real family, and itself has a family structure, with the term "godfather" itself evoking images of family, generational issues, and even the religion that binds the family together. The main characters are members of the Corleone family, both actual members and adopted members like the consigliere, or counselor, Tom Hagan, who was raised with the Corleone brothers as if he were a member of the family. The women are ancillary to the males in the family, acting as wives, daughters, an