BLACKS IN THE WHITE ELITE: WILL THE PROGRESS CONTINUE? by Richard Zweigenhaft; G.

William Domhoff
Review by: Earl Smith
The Black Scholar, Vol. 34, No. 2, BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION: 50TH ANNIVERSARY
(SUMMER 2004), pp. 55-57
Published by: Paradigm Publishers
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THEBLACKSCHOLAR
BOOK REVIEWS
BLACKS IN THE WHITE ELITE: WILL THE
PROGRESS CONTINUE?
by
Richard
Zweigen-
haft and G. William Domhoff
(Rowman
and Lit-
tlefield:
2003)
ISBN:
0-742-51621-0, $19.95,
paper.
Reviewed
by
Earl Smith.
"no business
taking Negroes"*
success story about African Americans at
the end of the 20th and into the new 21st
century
is welcome indeed. Blacks in the White
Elite: Will the
Progress
Continue? is about African
American success in the arena of education. In
this sensitive and
engrossing
book,
a social
psy-
chologist
and a
political sociologist explore
the
dramatic transitions faced
by graduates
of the A
Better Chance
Program (ABC),
a
program
that
has
brought
African American students from
impoverished
urban
ghettos,
rural America and
poor family backgrounds
to attend America's
exclusive, elite,
prep
schools. After
graduating,
many
of these same students enter
major colleges
and universities then
ultimately
some move on to
positions
of
power
and
prestige
in
corporate
America. This is a beautiful
story.
To be
sure,
much of the information and data
we
gather
as social and behavioral scientists about
the African American ethnic
group
tends is dis-
mal and
distressing.
Moreover,
the
picture emerg-
ing
from these data is
recurring,
continual. It
is,
to be
sure,
the
outgrowth
from
long
waves of
prej-
udice,
discrimination and racism. This new book
is a
"page-turner";
it is
encouraging
to read about
successful African Americans and
especially
those
individuals who have broken
through
the barriers
that block millions of African Americans from
entering
into the world of
upward mobility
and
the American Dream.1
The team of social
psychologist
Richard
Zweigenhaft
and
sociologist
G. William Domhoff
takes us back to their first book on this
subject,
Blacks in the White Establishment
(New
Haven: Yale
University
Press
1991),
and carries us forward in
this
follow-up study, approximately
fifteen
years
from the time of the
original
interviews that start-
ed the
query
into the
upward mobility
for African
Americans via the route of
higher
education.
African Americans first became
eligible
for
sys-
tematic access to
formal,
non-segregated, higher
education in the
early
1960s. We are
reminded,
though,
that even this access was
strictly
con-
trolled and
quasi-segregated.
It took
legislation,
marches,
numerous court cases and constant
pushing
to
uphold
the decision in Brown v. Board
of
Education,
347 U.S. 483
(1954) (USSC+).
From
that decision we learn the
following:
Segregation
of white and
Negro
children in the
public
schools of a State
solely
on the basis of
race,
pursuant
to state laws
permitting
or
requir-
ing
such
segregation,
denies to
Negro
children
the
equal protection
of the laws
guaranteed by
the Fourteenth Amendment
-
even
though
the
physical
facilities and other
"tangible"
factors of
white and
Negro
schools
may
be
equal.
AUTHORS ARE VERY METICULOUS in their
recounting
of the details of the
desegregation
efforts that followed on the
decision,
which
began
with the first ABC
programs (1963),
as well as
who funded these
programs (e.g.,
Rockefeller
Foundation,
Merrill
Foundation, etc.).
In their
follow-up probe,
the authors take us to their
answers of the
question:
where are the former stu-
dents now and how are
they doing?
The book is
organized
in such a
way
that it can
be
easily adapted
for use in the classroom. Stu-
dents will love the
smooth,
jargon-free
text. The
language
is accessible and the
supporting
docu-
mentation
plentiful.
Those students and scholars
wanting
to read
more,
or research
further,
will
appreciate
the rich endnotes and references.
Substance
12-year span between the
publication
of
the first book
(1991)
and the new one
(2003)
gives
the reader a chance to see how the students
enrolled in some of the
preeminent prep
schools
in America fared and what
happened
to them
once
they
left the institutional environment of
the elite
prep
school world.
*
Comment made
by
alumni,
faculty
and students when
Choate
(alma
mater of
John
F.
Kennedy,
class of
1935),
admitted its first African American student in 1959
THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME
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NO. 2
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And,
while there has been a
steady
stream of
research articles and books on the
subject
of
African Americans and
education,2
the main
ingredient
in BlacL in the White Establishment
-
and
now,
BlacL in the White Elite: Will The
Progress
Con-
tinue
-
is
experiences
of the
young
women and
men,
all African
American,
who have consented
to
being
interviewed in
person,
via
telephone
or
bye-mail by
Professor
Zweigenhaft.
If Professor
Domhoff carried out
any
of the interviews this
was not made clear. If he did
not,
it is also a
potential
weakness in that a
sociologist
would like-
ly, by
the
very
nature of the
discipline,
have a dif-
ferent set of
questions
and issues that need
addressing
from those of a
psychologist.
The book starts out with a
retelling
of the
high-
lights
of the first
volume,
BlacL in the White Establish-
ment. What makes this effective is
that,
if
you
are
like me and have not looked
carefully
at the first
book for several
years
now,
it serves as a
good
overview of the
major findings.
There are nine
chapters,
two
appendices,
and a reference section.
The lead-in
chapter
"From the Ghetto to the Elite"
is
very important,
for in it we learn about the
major
actors in the
study. Cheryline
or "Cher" from Rich-
mond,
Virginia,
who at the start was unaware of
who
Jews
were,
even
though
Richmond,
Virginia
has one of the
largest Jewish
communities in Ameri-
ca,
goes
on to
marry
a successful
Jewish
business-
man.
Sylester
"Vest"
Monroe,
whose three evolu-
tionary pictures grace
the cover of the
book,
was in
the first book and remains in the second book as
the
centerpiece
of the research and the
larger story.
Monroe went to St.
George's
School
(Rhode
Island)
from the infamous Robert
Taylor projects
in
Chicago,
and as the first
picture
on the cover of the
book
reveals,
he wore the clothes of the street
(black
and white
wing-tip Stacy
Adams
shoes,
high-
waisted
pants,
and a
hat).
The book has a nice
chapter (chapter eight)
about the
offspring
of the
original prep
school students. Monroe's
son,
for
example,
ends
up attending
St.
George's
School
after a
gang
related
experience
in Los
Angeles
con-
vinced him and his dad that he needed a
change
of
environment.
MAKES THIS DISCUSSION
WORTHWHILE,
though,
is the
analysis
of the three
prongs
that block access for African Americans
looking
to
be
upwardly
mobile. Most African Americans start
with less wealth than
whites,
and the chances that
solidly
middle-class
parents
will
pass
on their sta-
tus to their children are less for African Ameri-
cans than for whites. The authors note that
any
realistic
appraisal
of the "economic
footing"
for
African Americans will find:
(a) precariousness,
(b) marginality
and
(c) fragility (206).
Amidst this
gloom
one finds in the book a
number of
currently recognizable
African Ameri-
cans who have
passed
on their socioeconomic sta-
tus to their children. For
example,
Deval
Patrick,
former Assistant
Attorney
General in the Clinton
administration and an alum of Milton
Academy,
is
featured as someone who
gives
back to the com-
munity
that nurtured his
success,
by participating
in the life of the Milton
Academy
as a member of
the board of trustees. His two
daughters
also
attended the Milton
Academy.
Conclusion
IS CLEARLY DEMONSTRATED in this book IS
that education remains one of the best
routes to
upward mobility
for African Americans.
BlacL in the White Elite: Will the
Progress
Continue? is
a solid contribution to the literature that aims to
point
this out.3 The authors of the book
state,
out-
right,
that the students almost to a one have been
successful. Further
still,
they argue
that the off-
spring
of the A Better Chance
Program
are the
recipients
of "social
capital
that will
place
them in
good positions
to excel in life at almost
any
endeavor
they
so choose.4
This is an
exciting
book,
and the window it
pro-
vides onto the
exclusive, rich,
white world of
privi-
lege
makes it well worth
reading.
This is
especially
true for those interested in the
plight
of African
Americans
accessing
this world of elite education
systematically
for the first time in
history.
BlacL in
the White Elite: Will the
Progress
Continue? is an excel-
lent treatment of
race,
class and
gender
issues as
they impact upward mobility
for African American
youth.
That the authors side on caution in terms of
looking
into the future is also
noteworthy, seeing
that most of the financial
support
and other
resources that went into recruitment and scholar-
ships
and
building programs
like ABC and the Bal-
timore Educational
Scholarship
Trust
(BEST)
have
either dried
up
or been
substantially
cut,
thus mak-
ing
it difficult to offer the needed
money
to
spend
on elite
prep
school,
and later
college
educations
today.
In this
updated study
we have here a
grip-
ping
account of
strivings,
similar to those recounted
by
W. E. B. Du Bois in his 1903 classic The Souk
of
Black Folk.5 The
patience
that it took to endure
many
of the all-white
settings
comes
through
from
the stories we
get
from
listening
to Bobette Reed
Kahn
(MacDuffie School,
Williams
College
and
Harvard
Divinity) discussing
the new "culture"
found at MacDuffie,
or to Kenneth Pettis
(Vice-
President for Bankers Trust in New York
City)
talk-
ing
about the summer
program
that was used as a
breaking-in
tool,
preparing
the students for the
rig-
ors of
daily
life in the
prep
school environment.
Page
56 THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME
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Pettis,
it was the shaping of a new social
identity
that
helped
with his transition into
the elite. It is
my
belief that such reflections tell us
that in the end it
may
have been well worth the
strivings
to achieve a
good
educational founda-
tion that in so
many
instances led to successful
collegiate experiences
and later careers. Blacks in
the White Elite is a
compelling piece
of research. It
is a book that must be read
by anyone trying
to
understand the tortured
social-history
of African
American-white relations in the 20th and 21st
centuries. As we look toward the future with the
benefit of
hindsight,
it is clear that education can
be a
rewarding,
even
profitable experience
for
many
African American students. The authors do
not
glance
over the trouble
spots;
not
every young
female and male who entered the
programs grad-
uated or went on to success. And
just
as
impor-
tant,
they
are careful to tell us
early
on that the
Great
Society Programs
of the middle to late
1960s
may
be
over,
undermining
the advances
made
by
African Americans as an outcome of the-
ses
programs, returning
us to the
days
when white
students,
their
parents
and
financially supportive
alumni felt that these elite schools had "no busi-
ness
taking Negroes."6
Endnotes
1.
See,
especially, Jennifer
L. Hochschild,
Facing Up
to
The American Dream: Race. Class and the Soul
of
the
Nation
(New Jersey:
Princeton
University
Press:
1995)
and
Mary Pattillo-McCoy,
2000,
Black Picket Fences:
Pnvilege
and Peril
Among
the Black Middle Class
(Chica-
go: University
of
Chicago
Press:
2000).
2. The
following
does not
represent
a full
listing.
See,
especially,
Samuel Bowels and Herbert Gin
tis,
School-
ing
in
Capitalist
America
(New
York: Basic
Books,
1976);
William Bowen and Derek
Bok,
The
Shape of
the River
(Princeton,
New
Jersey:
Princeton
University
Press, 1998); Jason
W.
Osborne, 1999,
"Unraveling
Underachievement
among
African American
Boys."
Journal of Negro
Education,
68:
555-65;
Signithia
Ford-
ham and
John
W.
Ogbu,
1986,
"Black Students
School Success:
Coping
with the Burden of
Acting
White,"
in Urban
Review,
8: 176-206 and
Roslyn
Mick-
elson, 2000,
"The Contributions of
Abstract,
Con-
crete,
and
Oppositional
Attitudes to
Understanding
Race and Class Differences in Adolescents' Achieve-
ment."
Paper
read at the annual
meeting
of the
American
Sociological
Association,
Chicago;
Walter
R.
Allen, ed.,
College
in Black and White:
African
Ameri-
can Students in
Predominantly
White and
Historically
Black Public Universities
(New
York: SUNY Press:
1991).
3. A
good
historical
perspective
on the
importance
of
education for African Americans is found in the
book
by
W. E. B. Du Bois
titled,
The Education
of
Black
People:
Ten
Critiques.
1906-1960
(University
of
Massachusetts
Press, 1978).
4. To define social
capital
we note it is "the
aggregate
of the actual or
potential
resources which are linked
to
possession
of a durable network of more or less
institutionalized
relationships
of mutual
acquain-
tance or
recognition."
This is how Pierre Bourdieu
defined the term. It should be
noted, however,
that
social
capital
is imbedded within the nature of social
relationships.
To
possess
social
capital
a
person
must
be related to others,
hence institutions of
higher
learning.
See,
especially, Alejandro
Portes, 1998,
"Social
Capital:
Its
Origin
and
Applications
in
Modem
Sociology."
Annual Review
ofSodology
24:1-24
and Robert Putnam. 1995.
"Bowling
Alone: Ameri-
ca's
Declining
Social
Capital." Journal of Democracy
6:65-78.
5. W. E. B. Du
Bois,
The Souls
of
Black Folk. Introduction
by
Herbert
Aptheker (Millwood,
NY: Kraus-Thom-
son
Organization
Ltd, [1903], 1973).
6.
John
Anderson,
Lyndon Johnson
and the Great
Society
(Chicago:
Ivan R. Dee Publishers:
1998).
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