“Our Kind of People” by Lawrence Otis Graham provides an insight into the lives of America’s black upper class, and forces one to contemplate how different would be our national social fabric today had the highly successful blacks and whites pooled their resources to contribute leadership, money and educational resources to bring hope, inspiration and help to all our people.

With such support, enlightened, dedicated mentors would have encouraged youngsters of every race to move beyond the world of rap music, degrading sitcoms, basketball and football heroes, many of whom are addicted to foul language, drugs and violence, into a world where hard work and personal integrity are the hallmarks of success. Not only did the whites and blacks not work together toward that end, neither did the blacks among themselves.

Graham illustrates that fact in the person of his maternal great-grandmother, a light-complexioned, straight-haired, black Southern woman who discouraged Graham and his brother from associating with dark-skinned children, and warned them that staying in the sun too long would deepen the color of their skin.

As a child in Memphis, Tennessee, Great-grandmother Porter had worn silk taffeta dresses, had studied the piano and was fluent in French. Her daughter followed in her footsteps. The family avoided the turmoil of the 60s by riding in a car, rather than buses, and using private schools, rather than segregated, substandard public schools.

Porter said she didn’t think much of the civil rights movement: “I don’t see anything civil about a bunch of nappy-headed Negroes screaming and marching around in the streets.” However, Graham later learned that she and her church friends often gave money to the NAACP, the Urban League and other groups.

The writer describes two worlds for blacks: “There were children who belonged to Jack and Jill and summered in Sag Harbor; Highland Beach, or Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard; and there were those who didn’t. There were mothers who graduated from Spelman or Fisk, and joined AKA, the Deltas, the Links and the Girl Friends, and there were those who didn’t. There were those fathers who were dentists, lawyers, and physicians from Howard or Meharry and who were Alphas, Kappas, or Omegas and members of the Comus, the Boule, or the Guardsmen, and there were those who didn’t. There were those who could look back two or three generations and point to relatives who owned insurance companies, newspapers, funeral homes, local banks, trucking companies, restaurants and catering firms, or farmland, and there were those who couldn’t.”

Graham informs his readers that the Africans who arrived in Plymouth in 1619, courtesy of Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, British and American slave traders, came from different areas of Africa with unique languages, skills and cultural backgrounds. Many came from villages with advanced skills in crafting iron, gold and leather, silver and bronze into tools, artwork and housewares, and where they were weaving clothes, growing vegetables and fruits, practicing different religions, and establishing laws, banking mechanisms, and medical treatments.

Yet, the fifteen million men, women and children were all treated the same on the auction block, their cultural heritage stripped from them. Only the selling price mattered: $500 per man, $250 per woman or child.

On the southern plantations, the slaves were divided into two groups – outside laborers who worked in the fields harvesting rice or tobacco, cutting sugar cane, picking cotton or building roads, smelting iron, digging wells or laying bricks.

The second group labored in the master’s house: cooking, cleaning, washing, and generally helping out with the personal needs of the family. They were better housed, fed, and some were given a basic education that allowed them to serve the household in greater measure.

It was to the owner’s financial advantage to father children with the slaves, which resulted in mulatto offspring, who often received favored treatment, including eventual freedom and a piece of land. Together with college education offered by such groups as the American Missionary Association, an association of liberal whites who had founded elementary schools for blacks, and the Freemen’s Aid Society, established by the Episcopal Methodist Church, the foundation for a black aristocracy was created.

The first self-made woman millionaire in the United States was Madam C. J. Walker, who began a business developing hair products and cosmetics in the late 1800s. She gave millions to help NAACP’s campaign against lynching.

One Chicago matron offered her views on that organization: “The organization did wonderful things for us in the South – and up here, too – and I’m happy to give to them because they help all of us but you just don’t find a whole lot of professional blacks socializing among the NAACP. We’ve got our own groups.....Why should I be socializing with some caseworker or mailman who goes to NAACP events? I’d have as much in common with them as a rich white person has with her gardener.”

The separation between the elite and the common people can be found in the choice of religions, says Graham. The black elite often join the high Episcopal Church because of its formality and the fact that the well-to-do blacks with roots in the West Indies had historic ties with that church. Others join the Congregational Church because of its missionary work in establishing secondary schools and colleges. Above all else, both churches were without a preponderance of black members.

Graham said he finds both pride and guilt among the black elite. “On one level there are those of us who understand our obligation to work toward equality for all and to use our success in order to assist those blacks who are less advantaged. But on another level, there are those of us who buy into the theories of superiority, and who feel embarrassed by our less accomplished black brethren....We’ve got some of the best-educated, most accomplished, and most talented people in the black community – but at the same time, we have some of the most hidebound and smug.”

Our Kind of People is a book that has earned its place on every book shelf in America, written with authority and grace, as moving as a novel, as informative as a history book. (1999/Harper-Collins/$14.00) And the price is right.

In the July 22 , 2002 issue of Fortune Magazine, there is an extensive article on “The 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America,” replete with stories of courage and brilliance. One that impressed me particularly was that of Cal Darden of UPS.

In his senior year of college, Darden married and found himself short of cash, so he took a part-time job delivering packages at $3.00 per hour, which paid the couple’s grocery bill. After graduation, he continued to work for UPS, moving seven times in 20 years, and found himself on the high rung of the corporate ladder, solving problems, one after another.

In Nashville, only 60% of the packages were being delivered on time, and in two years, the 100% goal was reached. Darden gave drivers more time to make deliveries, which allowed them to build relationships with the customers, and allowed the drivers to go to individuals homes, rather than using central drop-off spots. In 2000, he was named senior VP of U.S. operations and oversees the company’s $30 billion in revenues, and 340,000 employees. The consensus is that he is in line for the top spot of CEO. Quite a step up from his $3 per hour start.

Arnold Donald , CEO of Meristant, decided on his career to be a general manager of a science-based Fortune 500 company when he was a high school junior. Three times a day, he was reminded of his goal when the nuns would get on the public address system to tell the student body: “Gentlemen, one day you are going to rule the world. Prepare yourselves.”

Rich or poor, black or white, young people are dreaming great
dreams, and if not, we must ask, “Why not?”

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