While white co-workers called them friends, blacks said they felt more like mascots than intimates.

Another white co-worker told Mr. Jones that he wanted to invite him to his house but was worried about the neighbors.

Exchanges with his white co-workers, he said, had led to tension, not a frank exchange of views.

Conrad seeks a bank loan from a friend from the old neighborhood who also turns mealy-mouthed around his white co-workers.

This appears to be something of an insult to her and her fellow white, female, co-workers.

"Later, I learned that my job had not been eliminated but had been reassigned to my white co-worker."

When he waved to her from down the hall, two white co-workers ducked.

He remembers once seeing a white co-worker at a bus stop and walking over to say hello.

But all this changes one day, when one of his white co-workers asks if he would be interested in a date.