Black Experience in Middle-Class America Social Hierarchy and Behavioral Biology

". . . he moves beyond class to utilize the long history of human social divisiveness and ranking to focus on the substance of class itself. He places class within the continuous history of the production and reproduction of social inferiority. . . . This journey with Williams is a rich one. He describes religious communities, neighborhoods, churches, history, two anthropologies, obsolete education, politics, the media and the distinctiveness of middle-class behavior when compared to Black lower-class behavior. So his book is replete with empirical data to explain the conclusions that he attempts to compile. . . . It has a new and different approach to anthropology and sociology that should provide a wide vista for the new century. It has vital data for Black studies, women studies and religious studies and this volume can be a useful reader in these programs." Maxwell Owusu

"This volume is a new and different look at the Black middle-class from a variety of perspectives (case study, global, ecological panhuman, etc,). The book examines the values of the “culture of contentment” among African-Americans. The material offers and explanation of those values and some suggestions for transforming them." Richard L .Allen

Table of Contents:
Preface
1. Social Class and the African American Dilemma
2. The Black Middle Class and the American Cultural Dialogue
3. The Black Church in a Midwestern University Town and Twin City: A Middle-Class African American Dilemma
4. The Middle Class in Belmar
5. Human Inferiority Feelings: Two Middle-Class Cases
6. Political Behavior
7. Education and the Black Middle Class
8. The Media and the Black Middle Class
9. Black Culture in America: The Rise and Fall of Racial Pride During Three Decades of Integration
10. The discussion
11. Summing Up
Bibliography; Index