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So my -- the fact that I was elected president of “SPISSI”, Division 9, was to me the end-all and be-all, and that would be that.

But after nomination, I was elected. And I didn't believe it. But I would not be honest with you if I didn't tell you, I was very proud. I was proud. I was happy. I felt, my God, this is a very pleasant surprise:

I mean, it broke, shattered, smashed a stereotype of mine.

And oddly enough, skeptical as I am, I didn't believe, it was because I was black. Maybe I should have. But may be my ego was, by this time, taking charge, and I believed that I was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1970, whatever it was, or ‘69, because a sufficient number of my colleagues believed that my kind of involvement and use of my field was not negative. That it was something positive, that the involvement of social psychology in problems of social policy should not relegate the psychologist to the status of a scientific leper.

And I felt this was a good sign. I still do.

It's interesting, by the way, that the present presidentelect of the APA is a clinical psychologist in private practice. I think this is unprecedented. This is the first time in the history of the American Psychological Association that a person has been elected president who did not have an academic, institutional base. And he's also Jewish. It's not the first time that a Jewish person has been elected president, but it certainly is the first time that a person who is clinical, non-academic-based, and Jewish