Upper class black people

[rufian]

Is there such a thing as upper-class blacks? How can they be identified? Do we have our own class systems?

A lot of times when class is addressed in association with blacks the highest class to be mentioned is middle-class. Or blacks with a little education seem to fall in the middle-class category.

The other side of it, is that the upper-class of non-whites seem to be middle-class to whites.

Any takers? Blackstar?

[churchgirl]

Re: Upper class black people

<span style='font-size: 11pt'>Here's an interesting article on the topic Sukuna.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">According to the predictions of Benjamin Bowser, the African American middle class could completely disappear in as little as 20 years. Bowser, chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Services at California State University, East Bay, spoke on April 10 about his recent book “The Black Middle Class: Social Mobility – and Vulnerability,” in the Kirner-Johnson Red Pit at Hamilton. The former president of the Association of Black Sociologists has written extensively on race, ethnic relations and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Bowser showed with graphs and statistics that the African American middle class is far less present than the white middle class in America, yet he noted that neither group is thriving. Nonetheless, the black middle class has grown greatly since the 1940s. This happened not because of the civil rights movement and desegregation, but because when employment increases significantly overall, it improves even for the very bottom. Still, the African American middle class has many qualities that make it distinct, according to Bowser. The black middle class is the canary because of ideology of race. Bowser believes that the term “race” was coined by colonizers in early America in order to obscure class. North and South Carolina passed legislation specifically saying those of African ancestry were Negro slaves, whiles those of European ancestry were white, believing that “race” would prevent Africans and Europeans from uniting against them. It is not so much African American culture that hurts the black middle class, but what the upper middle class society wants to do with African Americans. Ultimately, Bowser believes the lack of a successful middle class is evidence that racism is alive in America.

To Bowser’s knowledge, black Americans have yet to enter the upper class, and Italians, Greeks, and many other minorities still haven’t really joined the class of wealth yet either. Black people may drive nice cars, and wear nice clothes, but what they have is not what Bowser would call wealth, although he noted that the average white American isn’t worth that much either. Bowser has not met one African American who has enough net financial assets to live six months without working. The average net financial assets for white married couples are $1150 and zero for black married couples, whether statisticians control for age or not. For white-collar workers, the wealth gap is even wider, as the average net worth is $8680 for whites, and still zero for blacks.

Bowser joked that he chose to live in California so his family wouldn’t hit him up for money all the time, although his wife’s family is from the Bay area. Kidding aside, Bowser views it as a serious problem that black families consistently share and split their assets amongst each other. In order to become wealthy, people must maintain assets as large lump sums that get passed down to subsequent generations via trusts, without spending the principal. An upperclass requires this build up of intergenerational wealth, and black workers simply haven’t been there long enough. Bowser knew a professor who left Cornell in order to manage the family trust, but can’t think of any black people who have done this. Not Jackie Robinson, not Madame CJ Walker, because none of them have had the knowledge of how to invest in trusts and the banks and accounting firms standing behind them. Bowser is interested to see whether Oprah and Bill Cosby will be able to leave a legacy of wealth via trust funds, or if their assets will be split into oblivion by their families.

More important for Bowser is the threat that the black middle class will continue to deteriorate and ultimately collapse over the course of the next 20 years, and the white middle class may follow suit. In France, Bowser observed a European middle class much more sensitive and aware of its vulnerability than the American middle class, regardless of race. Europeans, according to Bowser, realize that the formidable number of engineers, accountants, and other workers being trained in India and China are increasingly able to offer labor comparable to their own at much lower costs.

Workers from globalizing economies make the American middle class look “overpriced and redundant”, yet the press leads people to believe that outsourcing is an issue that will only affect the working class, if they address the threat at all. Bowser is concerned by the fact that 30 years from now, there will be more Chinese people speaking English than people who speak English as a first language.

In the future absence of a middle class, there will be no one to say “this is the way to get out of the underclass, people, just stay out of jail, get an education, work hard, and you’ll be just fine”. If all of the underclass woke up tomorrow and demanded an education, the system wouldn’t be able to handle it. Bowser contended that because of economic “backsliding” the issue of race is more alive and well now than it was in 1960. At least in 1960 people came up from the South and found jobs where they could make a living. Now there is no “North”, there is no way out of the ghetto. Bowser is fascinated by “how the lid has been kept on the box,” and believes there would be mass riots every summer, were it not for the ubiquity of drugs.

Recovering addicts are often quick to ask “where can I get a job? Where can I go to school?” When they are painfully told that because they were drug addicts it s unlikely that they can get jobs, and they have little chances of getting back into school, they often lose hope and return to drugs. Some people quit for religious religion, but for the most part the lack of necessary possibility of upward mobility leaves people little reason to quit.

In closing, Bowser stressed that “America must pass really forward thinking national policy soon”, if we are going to save the black middle class, not to mention the education, reputation, and global worth of American workers. The lecture was sponsored by the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center. </div></div>

Article here. </span>

[Blackstar*]

Re: Upper class black people

There are upper-class black people but mainly in entertainment and sports. IMO, they tend to fragment their wealth when they marry non-blacks and/or leave the black community behind.

There doesn't seem to be much of a black business class. Until black people start running things we won't achieve any lasting status in the ranks of the middle- and upper-class.

I read an interesting article about Spike Lee (middle-class entertainment background) and how he was received by his wife's family (middle-class corporate slaves). The couple lived in Harlem for awhile, but she said it didn't suit her, so they've hidden themselves away in an upscale part of NYC where other well-to-do blacks live. I remember being struck by the snobbishness of the piece. So class systems among us definitely exist. Let me go find that article...

[tsophra]

Re: Upper class black people

yes..there is a definitely black upper class..and they don't let in entertainers or other celebs...they been around for years.. and yu have to be lighter than a brown paper bag to be accepted..

[tsophra]

Re: Upper class black people

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">David Gergen engages Lawrence Otis Graham, an attorney and contributing editor at US News and World Report. He is the author of Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class.




DAVID GERGEN: Lawrence, in the way you describe it in your new book, the black upper class in America has created a social world that is very unfamiliar to me, and I imagine to a great many others. For example, you've been a member of the black upper class all your life and you went to Princeton, you went to the Harvard Law school. You went to Wall Street to practice law. You married a woman with three degrees from Harvard. But you also were a member of Jack and Jill as a young boy. Your mother was a member of the Links and now as a man, you're a member of Boule. What are those social organizations? They seem to have defined your life as much as Princeton and Harvard Law did.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM, Author, Our Kind of People: That's a good point, David, because it's very interesting how almost schizophrenic the existence of members of the black upper class really live, where a part of their life, for instance, myself, growing up in an all-white neighborhood in an affluent community in Westchester County outside of New York, where my weeks, Monday to Friday, were spent with the white children in my neighborhood, but on the weekends, my activities were with Jack and Jill, which is an old -- a very, very old organization founded in the 1930's, for black upper class children, to really network with each other and meet each other through different chapters around the country, and was founded by seven black women. Six were married to physicians, one was married to a banker. And their goal was really to create a black children's play group because they were dealing with the segregation that existed. But these were well-to-do blacks that knew that they needed to bring together kids that might have felt like outsiders when they were with other black children who might have been less privileged.

DAVID GERGEN: And there are chapters of Jack and Jill all over the country.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: Right. There's 220 chapters of Jack and Jill around the country. And many of the most prominent blacks in America have their children enrolled in this group because it teaches them about their black identity. They perform a lot of public service on the weekends.

DAVID GERGEN: Now, that social networking includes fraternities and sororities, a very powerful part.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: It includes sororities like AKA's and the Deltas that were founded at Harvard -- at Howard University, as well as the fraternities, Alphas, the Kappas and the Omegas. But even more than that, there are things like the debutante cotillions and the men's and women's social groups. Many people don't realize that the black experience, even though there's a public image, this sense that people are activists, but many people within the black upper class are very quiet about where they come from, what their background is. It's a group that really is obsessed with family background, as well as wealth, and to some extent, what we call the "Brown Paper Bag and Ruler Test."

DAVID GERGEN: Yes. Tell us about that test.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: Well, that's something that goes back to slavery -- when blacks were divided into the dark skinned slaves that worked in the fields and then the light skinned slaves that worked in the house at the "prestige" jobs -- the butlers, the cooks, the family servants. And the rule was the Brown Paper Bag and Ruler Test was nothing more than you had to be lighter than a brown paper bag and your hair had to be as straight as a ruler. So it's an ugly and unfortunate way of looking at skin color and hair texture, but that was what the attitude of the black upper class has been and certainly had been.

DAVID GERGEN: And it is a dividing point there between the black upper class and other blacks. You said that the black upper class lives on the boundaries of two worlds: One, the black community and another the white community. It must be a complex relationship for the black community.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: It's an awkward situation because the black upper class is not accepted by either group. Whites look at them and they say, "Well, you don't look like us. You don't have the same heritage as we do, so you're not a part of the group, even if you are well educated and have the money," because this is a group -- the questions they ask in the black upper classes, "Where did your grandfather go to medical school" or "What debutante cotillion presented your great grandmother?" It's a group that presumes that you have wealth, but they care about so many other things. But it's also outside of the black mainstream in that it's a group that sends their kids to special camps like Camp Atwater, an exclusive black camp that was founded in 1923. They make sure that their daughters are presented to society through specific cotillions like the Links or the AKA's or the Delta Cotillions. It's a group that embraced certain black boarding schools that were founded at the turn of the century, schools like Palmer Boarding School, Mather Academy in South Carolina. So even though they've also embraced other boarding schools like Exeter and Andover to an extent, for the most part, the group is very separate from the black mainstream.

DAVID GERGEN: And talking about black colleges, you said there were three that seemed to be in an upper tier, which were Howard and Spellman and Morehouse and there were others like the Meharry and Fisk -

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: Fisk, right.

DAVID GERGEN: -- that were regarded as first- rate. But there was a difficult choice to be made by members of the black upper class about whether to go to a predominantly black -- historically black college or whether to go to a white university. You chose to go to a mostly white university like Princeton.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: Exactly.

DAVID GERGEN: Tell me about that choice.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: Well, and that choice was difficult for me because most of family friends and family members had all gone to black colleges. And certainly during my parents' generation, they grew up in the segregated South in Memphis, there really wasn't even a choice, even an issue. But when I was doing my research, and I spent six years on this book, I found that there were many, many blacks that were attending schools like Mount Holyoke and Wellesley and Harvard, going back to the turn of the century that were part of this black upper class. But there were only specific white schools they would go to, except when you get to the issue of passing, which I also address in the book, because the issue of racial passing was also performed and taken advantage of by some members of the black upper class because there were even people that graduated from Howard Medical School. I had interviewed the family of Hugh Price, who's the president of the National Urban League. And one of his uncles had graduated from Howard Medical School. But he decided on the day he graduated that he would rather live as a white man than live as a graduate of Howard Medical School.

DAVID GERGEN: When I was growing up in North Carolina in the 1960's in the Civil Rights period, there were many blacks who were active in that time on behalf of Civil Rights who felt that the black upper class wasn't there for them, didn't give them the kind of financial support, didn't give their energies. Was that an accurate portrayal? You said that there's been a complicated question about that.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: It's been an awkward experience that I think when people look back at the Civil Rights Movement, because many people do say that the black upper class was very late to supporting it, the Civil Rights Movement. And I had this conversation with Julian Bond's mother when I was in Atlanta.

DAVID GERGEN: He was a member of the black community -- he has been a member.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: A very, very prominent family, because the families I'm talking about are people that were millionaires at the turn of the century or who traced their lineage to the very first black US Senators from the 1870's or US members of the US House of Representatives, 1880's. And we were talking about the fact that blacks -- the black upper class financed a lot of the Civil Rights Movement. They were willing to write the checks to the NAACP -- people like Madam C. J. Walker, who was the very first woman millionaire in this country.

DAVID GERGEN: Very first.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: Very first woman millionaire who happened to be black, though. And she built a magnificent mansion near the Rockefellers in Westchester County in New York, 20,000-square-foot mansion. But she gave thousands of dollars to the NAACP in 1910 to help them with their anti-lynching campaign. So very quietly the black upper class has always supported Civil Rights issues. But unfortunately they were not the ones that were out front getting their hands "dirty" or being chased by dogs or blown away by fire hoses. But at the same time, they served as the strategizers and people that helped motivate and mobilize the various groups. But once again, as today, many of them told me in my research, they do not want to socialize with working-class blacks. Interestingly enough, they don't even belong to the Baptist faith. Most blacks in this country are members of the Baptist Church, but this group historically has been members of the Episcopal or Congregational Church, and that's true certainly in all the 12 cities that I profile.

DAVID GERGEN: Fascinating story. Lawrence Otis Graham. Thank you.

LAWRENCE OTIS GRAHAM: Great to be here, David.


</div></div>

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/gergen/march99/gergen_3-4.html

[Diplomat]

Re: Upper class black people

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlackStar</div><div class="ubbcode-body">There are upper-class black people but mainly in entertainment and sports. IMO, they tend to fragment their wealth when they marry non-blacks and/or leave the black community behind.

There doesn't seem to be much of a black business class. Until black people start running things we won't achieve any lasting status in the ranks of the middle- and upper-class.</div></div>

It is said that the disposable income among African-Americans is equivalent to that of the 11th richest country in the world. The problem doesn't seem to be that of 'black people running things', but getting black people to invest that disposable income into productive ventures instead of spending like there is no tomorrow. Maybe that's why our segment of the consuming market seems to be targetted differently; i.e. more aggressively?

[evanovitch]

Re: Upper class black people

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Jaded</div><div class="ubbcode-body">yes..there is a definitely black upper class..and they don't let in entertainers or other celebs...they been around for years.. and yu have to be lighter than a brown paper bag to be accepted.. </div></div>

dere u go..an dem still a ha debutante ball an all dat...still a do ballet an stick out dem finga wen dem drink tea....an dem count di fak seh dem ancestors dis own slaves too [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rolleyes.gif[/img] ..guess dem a try seh dem was not slave allll di time [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rolleyes.gif[/img]

but u know, mi haffi ask how class is defined in America?

[tsophra]

Re: Upper class black people

hmmm... [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/70402-thinking.gif[/img]

i think like most places yu have to be born into it...so family name (and money?)

[Gen]

Re: Upper class black people

so wah unnu a seh ? caucasion old money accept new money more than Af American old money accept new money ?

[Blackstar*]

Re: Upper class black people

Not necessarily, Geneva. Though on second thought, maybe rich black people are more exclusive than rich whites. Just offhand, I can't think of any black equivalents of Terminator, Peter Lawford (married into the Kennedy family) or Anna Nicole Smith (who married her rich, old geezer).

[tsophra]

Re: Upper class black people

well even if there were we wouldn't know..dem keep tings very hush hush [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif[/img]

[kia027]

Re: Upper class black people

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Jaded</div><div class="ubbcode-body">yes..there is a definitely black upper class..and they don't let in entertainers or other celebs...they been around for years.. and yu have to be lighter than a brown paper bag to be accepted.. </div></div>

dere u go..an dem still a ha debutante ball an all dat...still a do ballet an stick out dem finga wen dem drink tea....an dem count di fak seh dem ancestors dis own slaves too [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rolleyes.gif[/img] ..guess dem a try seh dem was not slave allll di time [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rolleyes.gif[/img]

but u know, mi haffi ask how class is defined in America? </div></div>

[img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/704555_dwl.gif[/img] and dem still a gwan like Jack & Jill a seh one [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

[kia027]

Re: Upper class black people

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Jaded</div><div class="ubbcode-body">yes..there is a definitely black upper class..and they don't let in entertainers or other celebs...they been around for years.. and yu have to be lighter than a brown paper bag to be accepted.. </div></div>

[img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/70390-shhh.gif[/img] dem let in some darka ones as well but dem haffi pay dem way in

Seriously though the issue is that blacks have not been creating wealth (ie having enough to pass on to the next 3 to 4 generations) Very few black families have that kind of wealth today and at this time we dont know if the new money is doing as much to ensure their wealth continues to grow

[tsophra]

Re: Upper class black people

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Sunday, June 17, 2007
Atlanta's Black Aristocracy
There is no major metropolitan area that has a better-organized black upper class than the city of Atlanta. Exerting its power in the worlds of politics, business and academia, Atlanta's black elite sets the gold standard for its counterparts in other cities.

"We've had three black mayors with national reputations," says my friend Janice White Sikes of the city's Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, the nation's best collection of black Atlanta history documents. "We are home to the best-known historically black colleges. And in addition to hosting the Olympics we have some black-owned companies that are the oldest of their kind in the country."

Although she has spent most of her career researching and writing about an older, more rural Georgia, it is obvious that what excites Sikes most as we sit in the dining room of the Atlanta Ritz-Carlton is talking about the new Atlanta and how the black community has played a role in making it one of the most popular destinations for elite blacks in search of a city where they are in control.

"This city produced older civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Julian Bond, and Congressman John Lewis," she adds while looking over some notes describing her uncle, a black class-of-1933 Harvard graduate, "but Atlanta has also elevated people like Andrew Young, Maynard Jackson, and Johnetta Cole to national standing in recent years."

Unlike other cities of its size and sophistication, Atlanta has seen a black elite forge strong enough ties between blacks, whites, and the business communities of both groups to elect three consecutive black mayors. What is also interesting is that Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young, and current mayor William Campbell are solidly representative of the black upper class—a characteristic that historically has not been welcome in black electoral candidates in cities like Washington, Chicago, or Detroit. In fact, when Marion Barry and Coleman Young of Washington and Detroit, respectively, were campaigning in mayoral races, they bragged about their ties to the urban working-class community. In Atlanta, good lineage, money, and top school credentials are appreciated by the black mainstream.

In addition to excelling in political clout, black Atlantans outstrip other cities' elite in the area of college ties. Atlanta's black academic community is larger than any other city's because of prestigious schools like Spelman, Morehouse, Morris Brown, and Clark Atlanta. When former Spelman College president Johnetta Cole received a $20 million gift from Bill and Camille Cosby (she is a Spelman alumnus) in 1993, other cities and their black colleges took notice of the strong black university consortium that was growing on the southwest side of Atlanta.

And further reinforcing the role and place of the black elite in the city are its black-owned businesses. While it does not outnumber New York or Chicago in black entrepreneurs, the city does claim the nation's largest black-owned insurance company (Atlanta Life), the largest black-owned real estate development firm (H. J. Russell), and some of the country's top black-controlled investment firms, law firms, auto dealerships, and food service companies.
</div></div>

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Kind-People-Inside-Americas/dp/0060984384

[tsophra]

Re: Upper class black people


[img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/bubble.gif[/img]
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Lawrence Otis Graham is a nationally known attorney and commentator on race, politics, and class in America. He has written an astonishing book about America’s Black Upper Class. Graham’s book is titled: OUR KIND of PEOPLE. I enjoyed the book and personally knew many of the families that he mentioned. I was not happy that he did not include the Black Upper Class of Montgomery, Alabama. He made it as far down as Tuskegee mentioning black upper class families like DIBBLE, TILDEN, and BRANCHE. I have decided to help Mr. Graham out with his next book by letting him know that Montgomery, Alabama has a black upper class that is alive and well.

Montgomery, Alabama is a relatively small sleepy city with a population of less than 400,000. Among its many fine citizens are an elite group of blacks that include old and new money, political power that reaches around the world and enough self-confidence and courage to have created a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Among the old influential upper class black families in this great city are: UNDERWOOD, SEAY, WINSTON, JOHN, LANGFORD, WILLIAMS, CONLEY, JORDAN, PENN, WOODS, CARR, NESBITT,STEVENS,GLASS, TRENHOLM, WATKINS, LEWIS, ROSS, CLAYTON, CUMMINGS, PHILLIPS, RILEY ,STEVENS, DIXON, GILMORE, SIPPIAL ETC. Among the new influential upper class black families in this great city are: CALHOUN, THOMAS, MEANS, GILLIS, SEAWRIGHT, CARTER, KNIGHT, HOLMES, RIGGINS, McPHERSON, REED, GASKIN, McCORVEY, ARNELL, BATES, BUSKEY, McCLAMMY, McCALL, PRICE, MAY, MASSEY, COOK, LIGGINS, DEAN, WILLIAMS, JOHNSON, BRADFORD, GRIFFIN,CARMICHAEL,BAKER, DAWSON, COVINGTON,JOHNSON, SMITH, DANIELS, JENKINS, HAMPTON, SULLIVAN, PATTON, TATE, LEWIS, BROWN, BRAY, MARABLE, BURKE, BELL ,PIERCE ,MILLER, DAVIS, ADAMS, ABERNATHY, AGEE, ALDRIDGE, ANDERSON ,ANDREWS ,ANTHONY, ARRINGTON, ARMSTRONG, BAILEY, BALDWIN, MORRIS, BEAN, BELCHER, BERRY,BETHUNE, ARMSTEAD, AYENI, AUSBORN, CRAWFORD, VAUGHAN,TRIMBLE, KENNEDY, BAYLOR, STOUDEMIRE, NEWKIRK, HATCHER,VARNADORE,RAMSEY, LITTLETON, ERVIN, LEE, THOMAS, HARRIS, HARRISON, MARTIN MARYLAND ,MASTIN, SMILEY, JAMES, McKINNEY, ROSE, McTIRE,THORNTON, NETTLES, KNUCKLES,MOORE, NIXON,NORRIS, OATES,OLIVER, OWENS, PALMER, PARKER,BROADNAX, PARKS, PATTERSON,JACKSON, PERRY,GILLIARD, GAINES, NICKSON, SHAVER, WRIGHT,HENDERSON, WATSON,HOPSON, TYSON, TURNER,WALKER, WASHINGTON,WEBSTER, BIBBINS,RICHARDSON, PITTERS,PITTS, RAMOS,HARPER, ASHLEY, LAWSON, STALLWORTH, FRANKLIN,BARRY,JONES,BULLOCK,PREWITT, PRINGLE, PUGH, WALTON,BURK, BRIDDLE, THOMPSON, ODOM, ETC.

Many of these powerful and influential families are affiliated with Alabama State University, local state and national governments, private enterprise and religious institutions. If you are concerned that your family name is not mentioned I suggest that you purchase a copy of Mr. Graham’s book.. In classifying who was in the Black Upper Class, Mr. Graham had this to say:

BRYANT GUMBLE is, BUT BILL COSBY isn’t. LENA HORNE is, but WHITNEY HOUSTON isn’t. ANDREW YOUNG is, but JESSE JACKSON isn’t. And neither is MAYA ANGELOU, ALICE WALKER, CLARENCE THOMAS, OR QUINCY JONES. And even though both of them try extremely hard, neither DIANA ROSS nor ROBIN GIVENS will ever be.

Winning the lottery does not place one in the upper class of Black America. There are certain things that must be done for generations before one can rightfully be placed in that category. Until you are able to reach that height remember my dad Dr. Melvin J. Griffin Sr.’s favorite saying: “IF YOU DON’T HAVE MONEY, AT LEAST HAVE CLASS.
</div></div>

http://www.greggriffin.com/Editorials/Inside%20Montgomery's%20Upper%20Class.htm