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Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class
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Binding: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Harper-perennial
Manufacturer: Harper-perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: February 01, 2000
Publisher: Harper-perennial
Studio: Harper-perennial
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Editorial Review:
Debutante cotillions. Arranged marriages. Summer trips to Martha's Vineyard. All-black boarding schools. Memberships in the Links, Deltas, Boulé, or Jack and Jill. Million-dollar homes. An obsession with good hair, light complexions, top credentials, and colleges like Howard, Spelman, and Harvard...
This is the world of the black upper classan exclusive, mostly hidden group that lives awkwardly between white America and mainstream black America.
Our Kind of People is the first book written about the insular world of the black upper class by a member of this hard-to-penetrate group. A conservative network of families dating back to the first black millionaires of the 1880s, the black elite has developed its own rules for membership and for maintaining a place in a world that is unaware of its vast contributions.
Through six years of interviews with more than three hundred prominent families and individuals, journalist and commentator Lawrence Otis Graham weaves together the revealing stories and fascinating experiences of upper-class blacks who grew up with privilege and power. Best known for his provocative New York magazine exposé of elite golf clubs, when he left his law firm and went undercover as a busboy at an all-white Connecticut country club, Graham now turns his attention to the black elite.
Sometimes gossipy and always poignant, Graham visits and profiles upper-class families and institutions in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Detroit, Nashville, Memphis, Los Angeles, and New Orleansalways revealing who passes the "brown paper bag and ruler test" and who doesn't. With photographs and stories, the author takes us to the mansions they built in the 1880s, as well as to black-tie debutante cotillions and dinners hosted by the "best" families and social groups.
He visits families that trace their lineage to prominent whites, profiles major politicians, and interviews guests who attended a famous $60,000 wedding held in 1923 by New York's wealthiest black family. He takes us on a limousine ride with the richest black man in America and introduces us to socialites who are adept at screening celebrities, Baptists, and "new money" blacks out of their circles. Graham reveals the history of the black summer camps and boarding schools that opened in the 1920s, and the black insurance firms and banks that were founded in the 1930s. Our Kind of People even takes us into the Wall Street offices and Fifth Avenue apartments of today's millionaire black bankers and entrepreneur, who make up the new wave of elite African Americans.
Weaving together these stories with his own first-person narrativeone that tells of his childhood experiences in black elite social clubs and of wealthy family friends who "passed" for white in order to gain access to better jobsGraham reveals a group that has been simultaneously heroic, snobbish, generous, and ambitious.
Both poignant and inspirational, Our Kind of People gives readers a firsthand look into a very private community that has played a major role in American history.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Everyone on here tryin to slam this book needs to sit down somewhere!
All Mr. Graham did was tell about another side of black/american history that existed. Ever since I read this book(not half way but the entire book!), this book has provoked intelligent conversation among my peers and family )Other races have their famous families like the kennedys, etc in which they glorify their accomplishments. Why can't african americans have our famous families? The families that are featured in the book should be praised snotty or not, because they dared to accomplish beyond ... Read More
Rating:  - Self-Hating Ignorant Elite Blacks!
I am of one of the so-called elite blacks and I disagree with the book. Don't believe everything you read or believe that all blacks who have money, education, and nice homes are what the author describes. First off, it was instilled in me that if ones of our race is fortunate enough to become someone, lend out a helping hand to the less fortunate of the race. That's what me and my family has done over the past 100 years. We knew we weren't white and didn't want to be and didn't want to act like our ... Read More
Rating: - racial perspective
after seeing the author on a talk show, I had to buy this book. After opening the book, I could not put it down until I finished it. It is highly recommended for anyone who wants to know about a side of African-American life that is rarely known. My wife and I now have an insider code: "Our Kind of People" when we see an African-American who has really got it together. It blows away a lot of stereotypes. It demonstrates that African-Americans have the same gifts and flaws as others. I was amazed ... Read More
Rating: - Stimulates Discussion
"Our Kind of People" by Lawrence Otis Graham is a significant book.
In it he describes the African-American elite, their world, their organizations and their views. In it we learn about Sigma Pi Phi or the Boule', an extremely elite but extremely low profile group of African American leaders. There's Jack and Jill, a national organization where children of black professionals introduce their children of other black professionals. There's the Comus Club, The Girlfiends, the Rainbow Yacht ... Read More
Rating:  - I think people are missing part of the point..
It appears to me that some of my fellow readers have missed some important aspects of Mr. Graham's contribution here. His status as someone 'in but not alllll the way in' both invaluable informs and supports his documentation of these not universally-known organizations, AND provides an emotional context of the attitudes, unique pressures and for lack of a better word disconnectedness that seems to permeate 'those kinds of people'.
What some interpret as his open longing, is perhaps his ... Read More
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