New York, NY (BlackNews.com) - Lawrence Otis Graham has done it again. This Harvard-educated black attorney impressed the nation a decade ago when he went undercover as a busboy to expose bigotry at an all-white country club, and then again six years ago with his New York Times-bestselling book, Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class. His newest project is even more captivating because it is the nation's 1st black social register, THE OUR KIND OF PEOPLE 800 REGISTER, a directory ranking the 800 Richest and Most Socially Elite Black Families & People in America.
With Black family incomes reaching their highest levels, with the U.S. embracing its first major black Presidential candidate, and with three of America's largest companies (Merrill Lynch, Time Warner, American Express) now being headed by blacks, a popular African American journalist has announced plans to create a black social register---a detailed listing of the 800 wealthiest, best-educated, and most socially prominent black families and individuals in America.
The Our Kind of People 800 Register will categorize and profile the best that black America has to offer. Going beyond his controversial book, Our Kind of People, and his new biography of the nation's very first black dynasty, The Senator & The Socialite, New York Times bestselling author and attorney Lawrence Otis Graham is setting out to identify the 800 most elite families and individuals in black America's upper-crust: city by city, family by family, credential by credential. This will be the first publication to ever rank America's black community.
"Don't expect to see rowdy basketball players or, rap stars who use the N-word on this list," says Graham, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School. "The Our Kind of People 800 Register will focus on 'the talented tenth'---the kind of blacks that sociologist W.E.B. DuBois discussed 100 years ago---blacks with superior backgrounds: doctors, bankers, lawyers, educators and generous socialites." Graham notes more than one million black Americans now have MBAs, PhDs, MDs and law degrees. "This is the social elite," says Graham, "and they've always stood above the rest. This directory separates the wheat from the chaff. It's my way of fighting the negative black images from insulting new TV shows like BET's 'Hot Ghetto Mess--We Gotta Do Better' and 'Flavor of Love'. We are the 'good in' black America taking on the worst."
Next month, Graham starts a tour of 46 cities to collect names of elite people and families with ties to important groups, and to the black society-world of debutante cotillions, charities, prep schools, clubs, resorts and home life in the best zip codes. He will be touring while also promoting his new book about the nation's very first black society family, the family of U.S. Senator Blanche Bruce, a black man who was elected in 1874, and who sent his offspring to Harvard in 1898. The Senator & The Socialite: America's 1st Black Dynasty tells how the first black "power couple" used their wealth to befriend President Garfield and the Rockefellers.
Graham is collecting names from boards, college directories, Junior League committees, party guest lists and rosters of top groups like the Links, Jack & Jill, AKAs, Deltas, Alphas, Smart Set and other elite organizations that he first profiled in his bestselling book, Our Kind of People.
"Our nation may be on the verge of electing its 1st black President---a man with two Ivy League degrees. Blacks are reaching record levels in home ownership and income. Since 1887, there's been a social register for WASP families," explains Graham from his five-acre Chappaqua, New York estate, "so it's logical to have a register for these superior black Americans."
The Our Kind of People 800 Register will include Ivy League grads, as well as those who "summer" in Martha's Vineyard and Sag Harbor, or who attended Howard, Spelman, Wellesley, Morehouse, Exeter and Palmer Memorial, a black prep school founded in 1902. He hopes to include the families of Reginald Lewis (Harvard Law '71, America's black billionaire owner of Beatrice Foods and McCall Patterns), Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal, Memphis Congressman Harold Ford, Chicago banker John Rogers (Princeton '79, founded $5 billion Ariel Capital), Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons, Atlanta builder Herman Russell, billionaire philanthropist Oprah Winfrey, DC socialite Dr. Carlotta Buffy Miles (founder of Tuxedo Ball), Army Secretary Clifford Alexander (Yale Law '56), L.A. banker Paul Hudson, descendants of Madam CJ Walker (who, in 1900, became the 1st self-made woman millionaire), Miami lawyer Willie Gary, Park Avenue socialite Susan Fales-Hill (Harvard '84, produced Cosby's "A Different World"), DC lawyer Billy Martin and Harold Doley (New Orleans socialite, 1st black on NY Stock Exchange).
For more info, call Noelle-Elaine Media, Inc. at 646-424-9750, or visit www.ourkindofpeople.com if you, or someone you know, should be in The Our Kind of People 800 Register.
About the Author
Lawrence Otis Graham is a nationally-known attorney and commentator on race and class in America. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, he has authored 14 books, including the New York Times bestseller, Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class and The Senator and The Socialite, which profiles the nation's first black U.S. Senator.
A contributing editor at Reader's Digest, his work has appeared in U.S. News & World Report, Essence and The New York Times. He has taught African American Studies and appeared on the cover of New York Magazine after leaving his law firm and going undercover as a busboy to expose bigotry at an all-white Connecticut country club.
An alumnus of Jack & Jill, the son of a Link, and a member of the Boulé, Graham is qualified to write about the black upper class. He and his wife, a graduate of Harvard, Harvard Law School & Business School, live in Chappaqua, New York and Manhattan with their children.
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