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Welcome to another edition of black man in America presented by your city station in cooperation with the city's commission on human rights and these programs are broadcast Tuesday afternoons at five W. N.Y.C. F.M. ninety three point nine mega cycles and Tuesday evenings at my own W N Y C eight hundred thirty killer cycles here now to tell you more about this important series is our moderator Good evening this is William H. booth and I am here to bring you another in the series the black man in America devoted as the title states to examining the history and life of Afro Americans and the contributions they have made in our making to the material cultural and spiritual wealth of this country this includes all of the living not simply the civil rights issues we see in the headlines our guest this evening is Miss Alice M. Your Harlem co-author with Dr Ginsberg an associate of the middle class negro in the white man's world that title again the middle class negro in the white man's world published by Columbia University Press this is a study which was conducted by Columbia University's conservation of Human Resources project and subsidized by grants from the field of foundation and the United States Department of Labor This is your how long has been a research associate with this project for five years in addition to her work on the book which I'll be discussing tonight Mrs You know how long has prepared studies of educated American women and is presently involved in a study of educational and vocational guidance her previous experience include service as a labor economist with the federal government and in other fields of economics and market research she has been active in a number of civic activities including serving as an officer of the League of Women Voters her undergraduate work was done at the University of Wisconsin and graduate work at Columbia University. This is your home the title is interesting the middle class negro in the white man's world and then to the title of the organization that sponsored it the Columbia University's conservation of Human Resources project interest me because I've long been concerned with the fact that we are not so much caring of human resources as we are about physical and natural resources in this country of ours I didn't even know there was a Human Resources Conservation of Human Resources project at Columbia University which tell us something about it well this project was founded by Professor Gainsbourg who is a professor of economics at the Columbia Business School was founded many years ago when Dr Ginsberg became very much aware of just the problems that you have mentioned the problem problems. Of the use of manpower in our economy both them that from the standpoint of the individual himself and his fulfillment and from the standpoint of the nation and the correct shall we say allocation our. Resources with in the work world the manpower that we have certainly and women are our I said many and I feel very strongly about that I didn't. Get a lot of letters. And of course our Human Rights Commission law does prohibit discrimination against women only in employment though I'm very much aware I think we should have to go on from there yes it's certainly you know let's let's broaden the law. But certainly the Human Resources Conservation of human resource a project of Columbia University ought to get more attention because I think there's a need for people to know that there is such an organization I've been saying that we have wasted human resources because of discrimination and prejudice over these years and at the country's national gross product certainly could be increased a great deal more if we were not to waste those resources by reason of discrimination there's no question about this our group. Course is a research group what we do is perform studies for both government agencies and for private foundation. We are very much aware and concerned with anything that hinders a person from fulfilling himself. To his utmost. Why is it that your book is dedicated to Lord save rent and then underneath it says neither time nor distance can weaken the bonds of affection of a quarter of a century this is Dr this is a very close friend of Dr Ginsberg I don't know him at all I know that a Pat He's a very prominent. Englishman and a close friend and he felt and he wished to get a case they had to him and I we had no objection I don't know whether he has any particular interest in this particular problem he is English and of course they have similar problems right now the very first chapter is called middle class youth there's been a great deal of things said about middle class how do you define middle class you that's a very good question we got to the point where we really defined it is anyone who is not living at the pile at or below the poverty level. We. That anyone above but I guess some people think that we have an upper class that we have been very democratic we decide in the United States we simply have middle class and maybe lower class and underclass but the middle class probably goes all the way up through the Jets and talk about us as somebody like well I read an article where a man says he can he earns eighty thousand dollars and he's broke. You out of this this follows through the middle class you as well who are but actually in our case we had to decide. How we were going to select these youth that we studied. We chose them because. They were attending either high schools or colleges in Atlanta and in New York and since we had to select them through school records the one thing that we could learn from the records as far as background was concerned was father and mother's occupation and so basically we selected them according to the occupation of parents but we found that we were not far wrong because we when we went further into their background as far as where they lived and parents education in South for we were these were middle class voice that was they were living. Comfortable secure lives with great parental and family support and you found out a lot about these middle class negro you these would need middle class Negroes we leave you're going to go into another phase of us later a comparison of the middle class Negro youth with a middle class white youth we did not we did not compare them except what we accept in so far as what is generally known about middle class white youth we did not have a control or we have separate groups are you going to do this in the future I don't know I would be open to yes I thought and that would be a natural follow through this is it wasn't really an exploratory study we think much more should be done in this area why was it focused on the negro middle class I think good question. It seems to me to us today that people still speak of the black community as sort of a monolithic group I assume if you talk about the black community US speaking about the disadvantaged poverty stricken group now of course this is a large proportion but we are very much aware that a very large proportion the group is neither is not poverty stricken It's not an educated it has. All the attributes of the middle class in America we estimate this group to be about forty percent of the black population and we think that we could look we thought we could learn a lot from looking at this group and of the youth in this group the. People the boys who are growing up or grew up just during. The show and somewhat prior to the civil rights movement and see what. We were well I should say that we were really interested in what part race play. When all other social and economic disabilities have disappeared what part race plays in planning for the future in. Vocational aspirations an educational aspiration involving a life that's right when you when they when you there is security you wanted to know whether these boys were still held back by Barry is that they proceed based perceived because of their lives what did you find out we found out that they were not we found out that these boys and here we come to the middle class whites were really no different in terms of aspirations than white boys are they had the same range of aspirations and the same new aspirations that you might find among. Whites what I mean by new aspirations is that they were very much aware of technological changes and other changes in the occupational structure in the space program space program in engineering they were interested incidentally in going into many fields that had been in the past completely barred to Negroes engineering is an example then this is another example many of them wanted to be business executives engineers. Scientists of all sorts by their range of interests their range of of aspirations was where exactly we didn't really I should say have to do with special study of middle class whites many studies have been done in the past of middle class white youths expectations and we could find no significant difference between these two really did have that available for a yes yes you also looked into students not just middle class male use but students what kind of students we're searching for and how many did you have how many do you have in the whole project one hundred twenty what we did was we divided the group evenly on a on and grade basis we took of a third of the group from the senior class in high schools a third from the soft more class in college and a third from the senior class in college we felt in this way that we would get a sort of and. Idea of the evolution of the planning as they went through the educational system we also I think as I mentioned earlier decided that we wanted to have both northern and southern. Black students and they have four we chose them from we had our sample both from New York and from Atlanta Yes And you found that there were not many differences with white youth I think that's a major finding Yes Did you find that it was different there were differences. By reason of geographic location Atlanta and New York. To some extent and it's very interesting I think the Atlanta boys well first place and this may simply be an accident of sampling while more middle class than our New York boys and I think it was an accident of sampling. I should explain what institutions we chose arbitrarily Rob and it ladder we chose a high school and although Atlanta has probably made more strides toward integration than many other places in the south still has a long way to go and so the high school was largely in a segregated high school but in a middle class area and our college in Atlanta we had two colleges in Atlanta Moore has and Clark but largely more has now more has is I guess part of what we would call the negro Ivy League it's a very highly rated school and and the boys who went here were large the boys that we had any way with their. Because they were their parents were paying for their education they came they were the sons largely or to a large extent of professionals teachers social workers ministers doctors lawyers and so forth although some were lower and lower levels there's no question about it in the north we see our high school was a high school in an integrated area of Queens and the high school was an integrated high school our college we we chose we first we went to City College now we had a very interesting problem with that I think this is. An incidental when you want when you go to a school like Moore has our interview or both our interview is incidentally one Negro interviewers. Look for middle class in other words looked in the fall and then picked out boys on the basis of fathers or mothers occupation. It was very simple because everyone at more has practically was black Yes Well one city college of course does not keep records according on a racial basis so you could not go to the City College registrar's office and find out it was black or that our interview with then had to simply informally. Go to a cafeteria and look around and simply do it this way and then thought it through interviewing find at the back the background of the boy and had discarded occasionally a few interviews because they were not quite These were lower class kids who were going to college but it was difficult and and we even make a slight aside in the book about the fact that although we realize that the impetus the early impetus for getting rid of all kinds of racial identification in certainly in employment everything was all for the good because it was there was a discriminatory aspect to it there are times occasionally when let's say for research purposes and I know this is true certainly for medical research sometimes there's a need for this kind of thing religious as well as racial dedication where it was difficult but of course that we would manage to do it we didn't get all the boys from city Incidentally we got a lot from the city then we also got some from N.Y.U. and a few from Columbia in the north but interestingly enough and this simply made them the accident of the boys that our interviewer has happened to pick up they did come from although they were middle class in the north for the most part they were a low a level their families were much more likely to be white collar workers or highly skilled blue collar workers and in some cases the the father's occupation was not what we would call a middle class occupation but it was the mother's occupation with put that put the family in. Colorado mother would be to be a teacher or a social worker yesterday and the thought of might be a. A clerk or something like that although we consider Clark's middle class We're talking with Mrs Alice your Helen. Co-author with Eli Ginsberg an associate of the middle class negro in the white man's world what is the view of the Negro middle class youth to what is his expectation of what life offers to him what does life hold for him how does he feel about that I think I owe it to preface my remarks with the fact that this book these interviews and these this was in the form of open and interviews which took place about five years ago. I'm not entirely convinced that we might have might get the addenda color responses type of responses today I must say to the book was published in one thousand sixty seven but it took five years of work to get to a took two years the interviews took place I guess one thousand nine hundred sixty four the beginning of five and we had to write the book and analyze them and everything else I would take so you have a while you have a carry at that what you're about to say might not be applicable today yes I would like to discuss perhaps why. I would these boys had very high expectations they were but this doesn't mean that they were unrealistic they were very much aware of barriers that had existed and that possibly still existed but they are. They were interviewed right at the peak it seems to me of the what we call that what has been called the revolution of rising expectations right during the period when all the successes of the civil rights movement had reached fruition and terms at least the political successes and so forth and some of the socially public accommodations like. And I think that they were very optimistic that you had this feeling that now we have so much has been accomplished can be nothing but good for I can go down if that is happening we have hit bottom I felt that's right the body as we were in there with felt they were the slow mover they saw tremendous changes for instance between their lives and their parents. They even though a parent might have been a doctor he was usually a doctor within the black community they had feelings that they would be able to take care of blacks and whites have their training in integrated institution this is one example one in fact in been. One of our seniors had already been accepted as the first Negro at a Southern Medical School. They felt they knew there would be barriers but they had strong feelings both north and south that they could overcome these barriers that people were suddenly providing new opportunities and all they felt they really kept saying over and over again it is up to me as long as I do my work as long as I get the education I never have the rest is crazy Well this is really really you know we always say euphoric not quite you later on we got into other things like that you they realize that they you know that they were they were full of hope but certainly much more hope I'm sure than their parents had been in there a place so at this time in sixty four and sixty five they saw the crucial factor in molding their careers was themselves right exactly this is the brainwash that they had gone through I suppose example all their life yes what would you say where the attitudes toward marriage and children or do you have anything they would they all or I would say practically all of them had planned to marry to have children to. To live. The American Life Yes The the middle class suburban life many Well the interesting thing was how many of the Southern is still plan to live in the south although many of them planned to leave for instance many of the Morehouse boys plan to go to graduate school in the north yes instantly The urge the impetus the incentive for graduate education was very great practically all of them wanted to go on to graduate school both North and South. But many of the Southerners. Particularly those who live you see that the more has boys although they went to school and a lot of weren't necessarily Atlanta native yet but that was met lad a particularly felt that the land of Atlanta was a great place to live and I and many of them simply felt attacked to the section of the country and apparently felt that the changes were going to be so great that it would be perfectly alright to live in this I assume from what you said that their attitudes toward the Civil Rights Movement at that date in one thousand nine hundred sixty five I'm repeating your carrier. Was good was part of it they saw something happening but many of them had participated themselves did they identify with black people in general I it well I accepted their identity I mean as black of course if you mean did they the aspirations of blacks in general. Some did but I wouldn't say the majority a few of them were very service oriented and helping or in a but they were really in the minority I think the the general attitude was expressed by one boy who said I can do the best thing I can do for my people is to get ahead of myself and other words really disturbed is a model Yes but. They were but but this was their real aim they were really at that particular time much more interested in their own futures than the futures of the group to which they belong and they were probably felt they could leave the negro lower class also and get out of that box they were and you see they weren't members of the lower class I don't know if they are dead if I were the lower class any more than the white middle class identifies with the white lower class except that they had they knew that they were Barry is that both of them had to overcome to the results of the study have an earplug ability to the general Negro middle class gentleman milkmaid a little ASIO. Since it was a small sample really well we felt that since it was a small sample it's true but it was wide widely varied in other words north and south in terms of age and even in terms of place within the middle class from lower middle class to very much upper middle class and yet there was seemed to have been such consistency in their replies that we felt that it could be. It could be extended to the rest in general at that time we thought that they were there able and varied enough to make some generalizations about the group so that a person today reading these nine chapters and they start of middle class youth Number two is the students Number three is head start before educational aspirations five career choices six life goals seven equality of opportunity eight the impact of race and nine the road ahead if they were to read these nine chapters they might be able to apply this to a nine hundred sixty four a nineteen sixty five middle class Negro whether he's a youth or not I would think so and of course this indicates the need for a further study because there have been changes yeah tooth and surroundings Yes. I think that I think well let me give you one change if you look at the title of the book we call it the middle class Negro in a white man's world and in the interviews in the interview we have many quotes verbatim quotes. All these boys refer to themselves as Negroes Yes I don't think if you interviewed this group today that this would happen at all this is an example of what's happening as a short short time. I I think that it's interesting that if there if we would find a change and I suggest maybe not within all this group and I I think we'd have to know the change would be due maybe to some disillusionment but also to the impact of a lot of class on these boys because they're suddenly in colleges coming in contact with a lower class negro whom I may not have known it all just for us and these are the ones who are pressing things that the other kids who are pressing things for other members of the group at the middle class know not have been enough think I think forcing the middle class into a realization that I have to go a log and let us let us once again stress the fact that you're not saying that what happened what has been discussed in your book the interviews with middle class negro you. Is unique or applicable only to Negroes rather that it is probably universal for people oh I we think we know it in the in the end when we talked about the road ahead that what we see us What. Relevance this had for the other middle class blacks The question is what relevance that has to the middle to the non middle class black and we said it was obvious that until we this country could bring them to the level of these boys take them out of poverty and give them decent educations and decent opportunities for jobs in South where they couldn't hope. To reach the point where they could overlook this factor the showing factor was permeated their lives because because of it it had it had to press them and it's only through doing this we would hope that all blacks just as all white that everybody in our country could get to the point where the fact things that that set them apart as individuals that had no relationship to their own abilities would have would could be completely ignored in their future planning as you have and you have them tell me how were these interviews conducted we had to interview with both of them Negroes in the south we had a woman Grace Hamilton who it so happens while he was conducting the interviews was elected to the Georgia legislature the same time that you involve us. In. The north we had a psychiatrist or a. Man who was I think getting his Ph D. in psychology I guess both of them as I said were Negroes they they sat with these boys and spent a great time with them and they've simply had a vague outline of the things that they we wanted to know and they talked and they more or less took some notes and then as soon as the interviews were over wrote out the interview with a single interview Yes Well yes one time interviews yes but long ones. And exhausting apparently but they were fascinating to read I yes sometimes there were times when I would have liked to put the whole interviews in the book rather than just excerpts from them because some the flavor was lost we know the feeling because we just conducted a series of hearings into the educational system of the city of New York and much of what came out will be condensed into a report which we issued later this week but we'd like to be able to have all of the testimony of some other people who testify because I think it's well worth while and I can understand your feeling what do you consider the most significant finding of the study I think the most significant finding is if this country could make more of an effort to provide the necessities. And the of life and provide security and hope for more people we would have them aiming at goals real realizable goals without forcing themselves to restrict themselves as individuals. And we they would be better for it and this country would be better for it. So that's a very worthwhile finding and was that the finding that you look for that you expected when you started what were you what was the purpose of the so I said we were wondering when you when you are a secure comfortable and secure comfortable circumstances do any disability that you may have purely by birth extraneous disability such as race play a part in your plans or or do they play such a part they restrict your your hopes and limits limit your plans and you found we found that no that the that race we see in the background. As you. As you are feel more a part of the community and more secure in the community and as a person is this study going to be used for future work I don't know I as I noted before I think there should be a follow up I think this we are in such a change we are in a period of such rapid change year by year that what was true then has had very great historical of importance but I think really this is the sort of thing that should be done every other year to know just what the evolution of change is among these minority groups and it keeps you in a job. Thank you well as the Harlem for being with us on the black men in America we've been talking with Alice and your holiday co-author with Eli Ginsberg an associate of the middle class negro in the white man's world but he with us again next week when our guest will be on no eight off editor of I am the darker brother and anthology of modern poem poems by Nigro Americans this is Bill to think the night we welcome your comments on these programs send your cards and letters to black man in America W. N.Y.C. New York one hundred zero seven and join us again next Tuesday afternoon at five on W N.Y.C. F.M. or next Tuesday evening at Milan W. N.Y.C. black man in America is a feature presentation of your city station broadcast in cooperation with the New York City Commission on Human Rights.