Blacks In The White Elite

Shows why America is at a crucial juncture in relations between blacks and whites, when advances made since the Civil Rights Movement could either continue or retrench, depending on the decisions made by our governments, communities, and schools.

This extensively revised edition of Blacks in the White Establishment? adds fifteen years to the life stories of the African Americans whose opportunities were dramatically changed by a nationally prominent educational opportunity program that provided scholarships for disadvantaged people of color to attend the same elite boarding schools that educate the children of wealthy white Americans. Beyond tracing the individuals into middle age, and expanding coverage of their careers, with special attention to experiences in the corporate world, a new chapter on their children's education and early careers gives the new edition a poignant and unusual intergenerational perspective. Blacks in the White Elite shows why America is at a crucial juncture in relations between blacks and whites, when advances made since the Civil Rights Movement could either continue or retrench, depending on the decisions made by our governments, communities, and schools. The voices of African Americans heard in this book bring home for the reader the everyday impact of national policy issues and debates on race and class in America.

In this outstanding cultural biography, the author of the New York Times bestseller A Slave in the White House chronicles a critical yet overlooked chapter in American history: the inspiring rise and calculated fall of the black elite, from Emancipation through Reconstruction to the Jim Crow Era—embodied in the experiences of an influential figure of the time, academic, entrepreneur, and political activist and black history pioneer Daniel Murray. In the wake of the Civil War, Daniel Murray, born free and educated in Baltimore, was in the vanguard of Washington, D.C.’s black upper class. Appointed Assistant Librarian at the Library of Congress—at a time when government appointments were the most prestigious positions available for blacks—Murray became wealthy through his business as a construction contractor and married a college-educated socialite. The Murrays’ social circles included some of the first African-American U.S. Senators and Congressmen, and their children went to the best colleges—Harvard and Cornell. Though Murray and other black elite of his time were primed to assimilate into the cultural fabric as Americans first and people of color second, their prospects were crushed by Jim Crow segregation and the capitulation to white supremacist groups by the government, which turned a blind eye to their unlawful—often murderous—acts. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor traces the rise, fall, and disillusionment of upper-class African Americans, revealing that they were a representation not of hypothetical achievement but what could be realized by African Americans through education and equal opportunities. As she makes clear, these well-educated and wealthy elite were living proof that African Americans did not lack ability to fully participate in the social contract as white supremacists claimed, making their subsequent fall when Reconstruction was prematurely abandoned all the more tragic. Illuminating and powerful, her magnificent work brings to life a dark chapter of American history that too many Americans have yet to recognize.

This book looks systematically at the extent to which Jews, women, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and gay men and lesbians have entered the higher circles of power that constituted what sociologist C. Wright Mills called 'the power elite.' It examines why and how the power elite has diversified, the pathways taken by those who have entered the power elite, and the effect this diversification has had on the way power works in the United States.

Why has the large income gap between blacks and whites persisted for decades after the passage of civil rights legislation? More specifically, why do African Americans remain substantially underrepresented in the highest-paying professions, such as science, engineering, information technology, and finance? A sophisticated study of racial disparity, Opting Out examines why some talented black undergraduates pursue lower-paying, lower-status careers despite being amply qualified for more prosperous ones. To explore these issues, Maya A. Beasley conducted in-depth interviews with black and white juniors at two of the nation’s most elite universities, one public and one private. Beasley identifies a set of complex factors behind these students’ career aspirations, including the anticipation of discrimination in particular fields; the racial composition of classes, student groups, and teaching staff; student values; and the availability of opportunities to network. Ironically, Beasley also discovers, campus policies designed to enhance the academic and career potential of black students often reduce the diversity of their choices. Shedding new light on the root causes of racial inequality, Opting Out will be essential reading for parents, educators, students, scholars, and policymakers.

This book examines the “who, what, when, where, and how” of elite-white-male dominance in U.S. and global society. In spite of their domination in the United States and globally that we document herein, elite white men have seldom been called out and analyzed as such. They have received little to no explicit attention with regard to systemic racism issues, as well as associated classism and sexism issues. Almost all public and scholarly discussions of U.S. racism fail to explicitly foreground elite white men or to focus specifically on how their interlocking racial, class, and gender statuses affect their globally powerful decisionmaking. Some of the power positions of these elite white men might seem obvious, but they are rarely analyzed for their extraordinary significance. While the principal focus of this book is on neglected research and policy questions about the elite-white-male role and dominance in the system of racial oppression in the United States and globally, because of their positioning at the top of several societal hierarchies the authors periodically address their role and dominance in other oppressive (e.g., class, gender) hierarchies.

For more than fifty years, Hoover has been viewed as a lily-white racist who attempted to revitalize Republicanism in the South by driving blacks from positions of leadership at all party levels. Lisio demonstrates that this view is both inaccurate and incomplete, that Hoover hoped to promote racial progress. He shows that Hoover's efforts to reform the southern state parties led to controversy with lily-whites as well as blacks in both the North and the South. Originally published in 1985. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.