Black Enterprise

The Historical Record

From 1910 into the 1960s, the African American urban middle class worked almost exclusively in personal services as servants or were small entrepreneurs. The college-educated faction worked in segregated professions, serving the needs of other Black people, as preachers, physicians, and dentists. Within this context, Black-owned businesses, relative to White-owned businesses, were severely disadvantaged in their attempts to gain market share not only because they were barred from competing in the predominantly White economy but also because they operated in low-growth and no-growth market sectors and in communities with higher debt and less disposable income.

African Americans seeking jobs in higher-paying white-collar occupations were similarly disadvantaged by hiring discrimination blatantly practiced by White corporations. Yet even under these conditions, African Americans broke racial barriers and became highly successful. John H. Johnson of Chicago started Johnson Publishing and Johnson Products, which remain among the top Black-owned businesses today.

The limited opportunity structure on which the African American economy rested is not only a historical notation, but is significant because the dramatic alteration of this structure defines the nature of Black progress during the 1960s. That decade demarcates African Americans' push for citizenship rights, and the old middle class became more broadly elaborated through entry into white-collar occupations and, particularly, into managerial and business-related occupations in the mainstream economy. Indeed, it is this juncture of movement into higher-paying occupations and White-dominated economic settings that delineates the “new” Black middle class of professionals, managers, and business owners in the 21st century.

A Decade of Change

Figure 1 tracks the proportion of Blacks and Whites with 4 or more years of college who were employed in managerial jobs nationwide between 1959 and 1973, illustrating that Blacks were virtually excluded from jobs in corporate management in 1959. Only about 6% of the non-White college-educated population were managers, compared with 19% of college-educated White men. The figure also illustrates that a big upward shift in the slope of the line for Blacks, but not for Whites, occurred between 1965 and 1967 and occurred again between about 1969 and [Page 162]1973, when about 18% of employed Black college graduates worked in management.

Figure 1 Proportion of Employed Black and White College Graduates in Managerial Jobs, 1959–1973

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished tables.

The changing distribution of African Americans in the managerial and business-related professions can be accounted for in part by increasing levels of Black educational attainment. This upward trend in education can be seen in Figure 2, which shows the percentage by race of 24- to 29-year-olds who completed 4 or more years of college between 1959 and 1973. In addition, the change in Black economic opportunities can be accounted for by the development of government-sponsored antibias policies and intense public pressure on major employers during this time period.

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