Lawrence Otis Graham’s Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class

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Aug 29

Lawrence Otis Graham’s 1999 U.S. bestseller book, Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class, provides a sympathetic insider account of the habits, clubs, and lifestyles of America’s wealthiest Black families. According to a 1999 review in The New York Post, Graham’s book is described as “a provocative and important study of the world of privileged African Americans.”

Per Graham, in the introductory pages of Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class, “Although I spent six years researching Our Kind of People, I could never have been prepared for the controversy that it elicited from various groups upon its initial publication. Although there is a constant cry for diversity in our media, our literature, our history books, and in our communities, it became obvious to me that there are certain narrow stereotypes—-even within an integrated society—that people are simply unwilling to relinquish. The stereotype of the working-class Black or impoverished Black is one that whites, as well as Blacks, have come to embrace and accept as an accurate and complete account of the Black American experience. Our Kind of People upset that stereotype.”

Notably, our founder and creative director’s family name, McFail (spelled phonetically), was mentioned on page 307 of the critically acclaimed book.