All my life, for as long as I can remember, I grew up thinking that there existed only two types of black people: those who passed the "brown paper bag and ruler test" and those who didn't.
An edition of Our Kind of People
(2000)
Our Kind of People
Inside America's Black Upper Class
by Lawrence Otis Graham
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Debutante cotillions. Million-dollar homes. Summers in Martha's Vineyard. Membership in the Links, Jack & Jill, Deltas, Boule, and AKAs. An obsession with the right schools, families, social clubs, and skin complexion. This is the world of the black upper class and the focus of the first book written about the black elite by a member of this hard-to-penetrate group. Author and TV commentator Lawrence Otis Graham, one of the nation's most prominent spokesmen on race and class, spent six years interviewing the wealthiest black families in America. He includes historical photos of a people that made their first millions in the 1870s. Graham tells who's in and who's not in the group today with separate chapters on the elite in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Nashville, and New Orleans. A new Introduction explains the controversy that the book elicited from both the black and white communities.
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Subjects
History, Nonfiction, Sociology, Social life and customs, Race relations, Elite (Social sciences), Social conditions, African Americans, Upper class, African americans, social conditions, African americans, social life and customs, United states, social conditions, 1980-, United states, race relations| Edition | Availability |
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Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class
2009, HarperCollins Publishers
in English
0061870811 9780061870811
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Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class
February 1, 2000, Harper Perennial
Paperback
in English
- New Ed edition
0060984384 9780060984380
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Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class
February 1, 2000, Harper Perennial
in English
0060984384 9780060984380
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Book Details
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"All my life, for as long as I can remember, I grew up thinking that there existed only two types of black people: those who passed the "brown paper bag and ruler test" and those who didn't."
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Debutante cotillions. Million-dollar homes. Summers in Martha's Vineyard. Membership in the Links, Jack & Jill, Deltas, Boule, and AKAs. An obsession with the right schools, families, social clubs, and skin complexion. This is the world of the black upper class and the focus of the first book written about the black elite by a member of this hard-to-penetrate group.Author and TV commentator Lawrence Otis Graham, one of the nation's most prominent spokesmen on race and class, spent six years interviewing the wealthiest black families in America. He includes historical photos of a people that made their first millions in the 1870s. Graham tells who's in and who's not in the group today with separate chapters on the elite in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Nashville, and New Orleans. A new Introduction explains the controversy that the book elicited from both the black and white communities.
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| February 4, 2025 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
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