An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy is a 1944 study of race relations authored by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York.

It was enormously influential in how racial issues were viewed in the United States, and it was cited in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case "in general".

The book was generally positive in its outlook on the future of race relations in America, taking the view that democracy would triumph over racism.

[1] Myrdal believed he saw a vicious cycle in which whites oppressed blacks, leading to poor standards of education, health, morality, etc.

[2]Myrdal, writing before the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, alleged that Northern whites were generally ignorant of the situation facing Black citizens, and noted that "to get publicity is of the highest strategic importance to the Negro people".

"[5] In a 1944 review, political scientist Harold Foote Gosnell described Myrdal's book as "an outstanding social science treatise, brilliant, stimulating, and provocative.