Black Elite

"Bryant Gumbel is, but Bill Cosby isn't. Lena Horne is, but Whitney Houston isn't. Andrew Young is, but Jesse Jackson isn't. And neither is Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Clarence Thomas, or Quincy Jones. And even though both of them try extremely hard, neither Diana Ross nor Robin Givens will ever be."

Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class

The Origins of the "Black Upper Class": Jack and Jill, Cotillions, Camps, Private Schools, Colleges, Fraternities & Sororities, Boule, Families, Businesses are an imperative part of not only this scholarly deposition written by Lawrence Otis Graham, but also are the Life Blood of the "Black Upper Class." 

In it's time, and probably still today due to the majority of society choosing of televised and emotional media over literature and academia, Our Kind of People is one of the most controversial publications amongst various groups within the black diaspora in the United States. With practices like the "brown paper bag and ruler test" and the likes, but I digress. 

In this post we will be getting into The Game, the Jewels, the Truth(as scholarly possible), and the Mentality, Psychology, & ideologies of the self proclaimed "Black Elities." 

"Well-educated, light-complexioned, straight-haired" are the foundational and primitive characteristics that makeup the "Black Elite." Well-dressed, affluent, artistically versed, and privated schools like LeMoyne School(attended by " the riches black man in the south) will get you to second base in the 1960's. The right Church and Political party(Republican) will get you to third base. While generational consistency of producing affluent and qualifying members will drive you home by the standards of the "old guard."

To start, Our Kind of People, was written by Lawrence Otis Graham a Harvard Law alumnus. Inspired by Reginald Lewis(the wealthiest black man in America.1980's): Purchased the $55 million McCall Pattern Company in a leveraged buyout; 1987 purchase of Beatrice Foods, the $2.5 billion international packaged goods company. The largest leverage buyout in U.S. history at that time. Lewis contributed $3 million to Harvard Law School, $1 million to Howard University, $2 million to NAACP, and hundreds of thousands to many other institutions and charities. 

"I didn't grow up wealthy, but my daughters are growing up that way. And I don't want them to grow away from their black heritage. They don't interact with working-class or middle-class black kids, and I'm afraid they may get rejected by the white kids"

"I'm thinking there needs to be someplace where they can meet other well-to-do black kids and not feel caught in between two worlds and rejected by both."~ Reginald Otis Lewis

Lewis though extremely affluent, was unaware of the black elite circles that thrived under his nose. Lawrence quickly pulled his coat to 

elite black organizations and activities like: the old-guard families dating black to the 1860's, Jack and Jill, a national invitation-only social group for black kids from well to do families dating back sixty years. The Boule and The Links, considered to be the most prestigious private social groups for black men and women. 

Though the black elite often donate money to the NAACP,  the Urban League, and other groups that fought for segregation, they do not socialize with the members of these "middle/working class" organizations. Nor are they to fond of "low-class, Baptist, spiritual-sounding rock & roll playing church services and denominations. Such separation are rooted in the primitive "house niggers" and "field niggers" archetypes. As colonial slave owners and their families gradually instituted this caste system that one group was, indeed, superior to the other based merely physical characteristics. Lighter-skinned blacks being placed in the house and receiving social and educational privileges around the logic that they would be of better assistance in child rearing and social events. 

"Although it was illegal to educate slaves... It was far more likely that the house slave would learn to read, be introduced to upper-class white traditions, be permitted to play or interact with white family members  than would a field slave. In fact, slave-owning families found they could run their homes more efficiently when their house slaves were more knowledgeable and educated."~ Dr. Adele Logan Alexander

Even more privilege was given to the mulatto offspring of clandestine and forced sexual relations between female house slaves and white slave owners. Resulting in a clearer more defined classism amongst lighter-skinned blacks and darker-skinned as states like Pennsylvania establish laws to abolish slavery, with its 1780 Act for Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Such a fractured and ill-enforced act allowed for some blacks to remain enslaved until 1850 or until the Federal Census found no slaves living in that particular state. This transitional time grew the gap by way of "free blacks" versus "enslaved blacks" as free blacks had not only the educational head start but the social privilege of conducting business for self and land ownership. 

White government officials, religious leaders, and highly esteemed landowners justified the need for the enslavement of Africans because "they were not Christians- and so long as they did not embrace such religious tenets, they needed to be ruled by civilized whites who did", yet I digress. As many more white landowners and government officials came to agree with this decision as they realized how much the economies of their communities had benefited from the free labor. 

Blacks who rose to the top and came to make up the black aristocracy were typically those who were able to gain an education and professional skills. College educations was offered to blacks by way of religious groups like the American Missionary Associstion. As this abolitionist group in the 1860's grew in favor and funds, they established secondary schools and colleges in the south. Ie: Fisk University, Hampton Institute, Tougaloo College, ect.. The Methodist Episcopal Church in 1866 assisted in the formal education if blacks by establishing an organization called the Freedman's Aid Society.

Old-Guard Black Elite colleges of choice: Fisk University, Howard University, Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and later Spelman College over dozens of state sponsored schools populated by the lower-class. Other white north-eastern universities like Harvard, Amherst, Oberlin, Phillips Exeter are also fond of by the Black Elite of old. As Brown and Wellesley grew in prestige and favor in the 1950's. 

Political Representation.

Black men came to run for office, seats in the House of Representatives, and the Senate following the Reconstruction Act of 1867

1870, Mississippi's Hiram Revels became the first black elected to the U.S. Senate

1874 Senator Blanche K. Bruce, also from Mississippi

Robert Smalls and Joseph Rainey of South Carolina

Jefferson Long of Georgia

Benjamin Turner of Alabama

Josiah Wells of Florida

John Lynch of Mississippi all served in the U.S. Congress and shared not a financial boost, but a lasting prestige to certain family names. Along with a list of two dozen other between 1870-1890's. 

Example of prominent families that socialized, built businesses, intermarried, and built respected dynasties with one another include but not limited to: 

Terrell in Washington

Pinchback Washington

Grimke in Washington

Herndon in Atlanta

Rucker in Atlanta

Minton in Philadelphia

Purvis in Philadelphia 

Bishop in New York

White in New York 

Delany in New York

Wheeler in Chicago

Williams in Chicago

Dynasties and Businesses were founded in progressive cities close to black universities ie: Atlanta, Washington, Nashville, Charleston, Memphis, Chicago, Detroit, New York and Philadelphia. 

Black Physicians rose out of Tuskegee, Alabama centered around the nations only black Veterans Administration hospital and Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute. Tennessee grew the black physician family by way of Fisk University & Meharry Medical College. 

Medicine, Dentistry, and Law are the common career paths to success in the black elite. Other sources include individual entrepreneurship ie: black funeral homes, black banks, insurance companies, and newspapers

Wealthy and influential Atlanta families like the Herndons and Scotts who root their wealth at Atlanta Life Insurance and the Atlanta Daily World

Pt.1

"G.O.D"

~HighLife