Study Questions for “The Black Middle Class” (Bowser)

Introduction

What were the author’s objectives in writing “The Black Middle Class”?

What does the author mean when he says that black Americans are “the miner’s canary”? (if you are not familiar with the term, “miner’s canary,” look it up) Why are black Americans the “miner’s canary”?

How does the author depict the analytical relationship between the black and white middle classes?

In what principal ways does the black middle class differ from the white middle class?

Chapter 2 – Putting Class in Context

Historically, what were the origins of the middle class (where did it come from, and when)?

How do Weber’s and Marx’s definitions of class differ?

What economic problems “necessitated” the importation of slave labor to the US colonial South?

Chapter 3- The Emergence of a Black Middle Class

In what way did colonial slavery impact the emergence of the first black middle class?

What did the early social hierarchy of the slave population look like?

What groups formed the white middle class in the 19^th C? How did the white middle class emerge in the 19^th C?

Was there a pre-Reconstruction black middle class? If not, why? If so, what did it look like?

What was Reconstruction? What kinds of changes took place in the South with Reconstruction?

How were the post-bellum Reconstruction blacks stratified?

How and why did Reconstruction allow for the emergence of a new black middle class?

What were the defining characteristics of the Reconstruction era black middle class? How did they differ from the larger US middle class of that time?

According to Bowser, is the middle class a necessary element of a functioning social system? If so, why? If not, why not?

Chapter 4 – The Class that Jim Crow Built

What was the fate of blacks in the South after Reconstruction ended? What were some of the changes that took place?

What is Plessy v Ferguson (1896)? What precedent did it establish?

What is Jim Crow? What was its purpose/s? Where did it emerge in its most extreme forms?

Why was the black middle class particularly impacted by post-Reconstruction Jim Crow?

How did blacks respond and adapt to the Jim Crow era?

Why was southern economic development negatively impacted by Jim Crow?

What did the black middle class look like in the Jim Crow era? What characteristics defined the Jim Crow era black middle class?

How did the Jim Crow era black middle class differ from the white middle class of that time?