ABSTRACT
Historically, black sociologists have long recognized the variety of experiences within black communities. Central to that varied experience has been class status. Though class differences divide black communities, early studies of black social life considered different economic classes within the black community in relation to one another. As work from non-black sociologists came dominant the intellectual discourse about black people, engagement with black professionals, while present at the origins of sociology as a discipline, was de-centered in the study of the black experience. The labor market would not have done the work on its own and absent external intervention blacks would have been continued to be frozen out of the professional job market. The contours of this debate should be familiar to anyone currently engaged in conversations or research about black economic achievement. The precarious position of the black middle class, and the professionals who make up that middle class, is something that sociologists take seriously.
