Rachel Skidmore

Intro to Sociology

November 8th, 2014

Assignment #3
"Two Nations of Black America"

In the 1960's, when the Civil Rights movement was in full swing, and people like Martin
Luther King were fighting for the equality of black people, racism swept the nation. This "color
line" forced the foundation for what would eventually lead to the two nations of Black America.
However, the issue of race only started the problem, the real underlying cause of these two black
nations is the problem of social class and an economic system that did not incorporate the
success of black people, even after the Civil Rights movement had passed.
This struggle for racial inequality lead the way to Martin Luther King's "Poor People's
Campaign", where he tried to gain support for guaranteed employment, full income, and housing
for his fellow black Americans. However, shortly before his assassination was when he realized
that civil rights alone could not solve the problem of poverty. This is because it was soon
realized that "once the civil rights act was completed, the government did not have any intentions
of re-structuring the economy for blacks" (Kathleen Cleaver). Thus, the struggle continued.
Although instead of it being a race issue, now we've entered into a class issue where society had
built up the need for inequality of classes.
W.E.B Du Bois had said that "the talented 10th could lead black people to liberation." As
Jesse Jackson put it, "Poor people work every day, they are not lazy; skills and energy became
more of a demand, the people who didn't have skills got left behind." Things like Affirmative
Action created a class elite for people among the black community, and then left behind the rest
to the working class, with a great inequality of income. This essentially created the gap between
the black middle class and underclass.

In this film, Cornell West described life back in 1967 where there were higher poverty
rates, but stronger, intact communities. This compared to the setting of the film in 1997 to where
black people were more alienated among the poorer working class and that feeling of community
had begun to disappear. With this disappearance of a more tight nit community, a gangster
culture had arose, which only debilitated the gap between the black middle and lower classes
even more. Although gang culture also existed in the 1960's, it had begun to embrace the worst
of people, which only made it harder for people to move up along the class line.
This lead to things like The Strive Program, which aids in developing young people, by
helping them to acquire the personal skills they need to get a job and sustain it. As Christopher
Edley said, we "need school reform, job training, and stronger families, not just affirmative
action alone; it's only by putting the entire package together, including opening the door of
opportunity that we'll make real progress." This explanation really puts into perspective that this
gap in social class exists largely because of the lack of resources for the underclass.
Furthermore, with Martin Luther King's 1963 march on Washington, part of his dream
was to move all 33 million African Americans to the middle class, which "proved to be an
impossible dream." Although the issue changed from not as much of a race issue to more of a
class issue, neither class has fully escaped racism. In that, even the black middle class still
experiences disadvantages because of racism.
Ultimately, it is the issue of racism that initiated the gap in the first place. Then once the
powers of racism started to decrease, the issue of social class is what pushed the gap even further
between the black middle and lower classes.