Asked how his government would react if, as has happened in recent months, homeless blacks occupied houses built for others, Mr. Mandela said this white fear was unjustified because blacks will no longer feel unfairly excluded from state housing programs.

In the spring of 1969, gun-toting blacks occupied Willard Straight Hall on the Cornell campus and threatened terrified administrators with a whole agenda of demands.

According to Alabama law during the '50s, blacks and whites couldn't occupy the same row.

LEAD: James Atlas describes the upheaval at Cornell University in the spring of 1969, when "gun-toting blacks occupied Willard Straight Hall and threatened terrified administrators with a whole agenda of demands," an episode from which Mr. Bloom is "still deeply traumatized."

In six-year-old post-apartheid South Africa, blacks make up 75 percent of the population but occupy only 15 percent of the land.

Justice Brennan said temporary use of the 50 percent "catch-up" quota for promotions was justified to speed the day when blacks would occupy something like 25 percent of the department's upper positions.

At the highest executive ranks, blacks occupied 2.4 percent of the jobs in 1993, but they hold 7.2 percent as of this year.

A country where blacks occupy most of the unskilled, low-paying jobs while whites sit in corner suites of office high-rises.

She sat in the fifth row with three other blacks, the farthest row forward blacks could legally occupy.