The role of the civil rights issue in the 1960 presidential election was investigated through a survey of the voting intentions of 130 Negroes and 147 whites in a southern city. The civil rights issue proved to be of central importance in the decisions of the Negro voters. The white voters, on the other hand, tended to make their decisions on other grounds, and the civil rights issue played a much lesser role. This was due not to indifference toward the issue but rather to the belief that the stands of Nixon and Kennedy were equally unacceptable. Thus Kennedy was able to attract a majority of Negro voters by adopting a somewhat more militant stance than his opponent on civil rights without alienating a large number of southern whites, who tended to regard any differences between the candidates on civil rights as insignificant.