With some exceptions, "mestiços" tended to identify with Portuguese culture, and their strongly voiced opposition over the years to the conditions imposed by the colonial regime stressed their rights to a status equivalent to that of whites. Before World War II, only occasionally did "mestiço" intellectuals raise their voices on behalf of the African population. Thus, despite the involvement of "mestiços" in the nationalist struggle beginning in 1961 and their very important role in the upper echelons of the government and party, significant segments of the African population tended to resent them. This legacy continued in the late 1980s because "mestiços" dominated the MPLA-PT hierarchy.