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

Now a TV series on FOX starring Morris Chestnut, Yaya DaCosta, Nadine Ellis, and Joe Morton.

"Fascinating. . . . [Graham] has made a major contribution both to African-American studies and the larger American picture." --New York Times

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.

Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 12/22/1999
Pages: 448
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 8.06h x 5.30w x 1.13d
ISBN: 9780060984380


Award: Gold Pen Awards - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
Entertainment Weekly 01/21/2000 pg. 99
New York Times 01/16/2000 pg. 32

About the Author
Graham, Lawrence Otis: -

The author of fourteen books, including the New York Times bestseller Our Kind of People, and a contributing editor for Reader's Digest, Lawrence Otis Graham's work has also appeared in the New York Times, Essence, and The Best American Essays.