This study explored the salience of ethnic public and private collective self-esteem among South African students contrasting by race. Participants were 89 black and 55 white undergraduate students (93 females, 51 males; mean age: 20 years). They completed two subscales of the collective self-esteem scale; measuring ethnic private and public collective self-esteem. Logistic regression with bootstrapping and t-tests were applied to examine differences in public and private collective self-esteem between and within race. Findings suggest white students to report higher public collective self-esteem and lower private collective self-esteem when compared to black students. The expression of collective self-esteem may be tied to private rather than public images among black South African students from exposure to intergenerational marginalization consequent from the apartheid legacy.