The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle-Class Ideology and Culture, 1960-1990.

Charles T. Banner-Haley. The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle-Class Ideology and Culture, 1960-1990. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1994. 258 pp. $40.00 cloth/ $16.95 paper.

There are some books one's home library ought not be without, and Charles T. Banner-Haley's The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle-Class Ideology and Culture, 1960-1990 is one of them. All Americans--not just African Americans--should read this book because it presents what appears to be a formidable, objective, and complete historical account of African Americans as too few people know them to be--namely, a people with a varied and rich legacy--some bitter, some sweet--that is inextricably woven into the fabric of American life.

Perhaps it is the "baby boomers" generation that might find this text an invaluable treasure, as it presents the history of educated, working-class African Americans from the 1960s through the 1990s. Though these thirty years are the text's featured decades, Banner-Haley aptly and resourcefully recaptures earlier times (post-slavery/pre-civil rights) to provide exposition that gave way to the post-civil rights years and the development of black middle-class ideology and culture.

Appropriately titled and thoroughly informative to audiences across cultural and ethnic strata, Banner-Haley's text is a well-written and well-documented historical account of the personal, social, political, and economic evolution of America's black middle class. It is divided into six chapters, each depicting a significant phase of African American life that he readily identifies, historically documents, socially and politically analyzes, and unpretentiously verbalizes.

In Chapter 1, "Leaders of Thought, Missionaries of Culture," Banner-Haley opens with reference to Clarence Penelton, Reagan's appointee to the Commission on Civil Rights in 1984, who echoed some sentiments evident today chastising the way African Americans cling to false hopes sought after through Affirmative Action. From this point on, Banner-Haley authoritatively presents the philosophies of a host of other black notables such as Benjamin Hooks, Louis Farrakhan, E. Franklin Frazier, and others to present the varying and antithetical schools of thoughts that African American spokespersons held (and still do hold) about the plight of African Americans in the larger American society. The classic and well-known debate between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois is presented as the basis from which other contrasting perspectives of African American philosophy and life are derived.

Thus, from the Washington/Du Bois debate have come the following trends of thought espoused by middle-class African Americans as they continue even today to identify and to establish a collaborative perspective acceptable to and representative of African American people:

(1) instilling race consciousness,

(2) working within, rather than without, the capitalist system,

(3) establishing a sound economic base,

(4) maintaining "class solidarity,"

(5) defending the race against white attacks,

(6) acquiring academic skills (education) to promote certain lucrative professions,

(7) individual achievement,

(8) community self-help,

(9) creating a more multi-cultural/multi-ethnic American society, and

(10) migrating north or remaining in the South to acquire economic

stability.

In Chapter 2, "From the Hollow to the High Ground and Back," Banner-Haley expounds on the effects that laws and court decisions have had on African American life. It was the 1960s, the decade many African Americans remember most for the dramatic changes following the Civil Rights Movement, that brought opportunities and growth both individually and collectively. "At the same time, African Americans as a group were still entrapped in a system that recognized individual rights as opposed to group or collective rights." Banner-Haley highlights the conflict arising from the relative prosperity during these times: the tendency toward a rather selfish individual achievement, characteristic of young, educated African Americans of the '80s and '90s, juxtaposed to the earlier desire to lift up the entire race. "These young African Americans who were in college in the eighties and nineties seemed to set aside the idealistic concerns and commitments of their predecessors and gravitated toward maximizing their material and economic well-being," Also presented in this chapter are discussions of urban versus rural black life, Black Nationalism, Affirmative Action resulting in more opportunities for some blacks, and political-socioeconomic change--from blacks being liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans.

In Chapter 3, "To Preserve the Dignity of the Race," Banner-Haley presents a comprehensive view of black conservatism and its controversial stance on Affirmative Action. Readers who are of the opinion that all blacks are or should be supporters of Affirmative Action and liberalism should read this chapter introspectively and objectively to become more knowledgeable about the trends of thought and motives behind views held by black conservatives in their efforts to portray and defend an ideal America as a "color-blind society" whose purpose ought to be to promote "racial harmony ... that would be enriched by differences in ethnic groups and races." Though many blacks criticized this neo-conservative group of thinkers/leaders, Banner-Haley candidly sums up the significant redeeming qualities they possessed:

If anything, the black neo-conservatives of the eighties were a

significant part of the fruits of integration. They demonstrated to white

America that there was more diversity within the black community than

their one-dimensional view of "black." They also made it amply

evident that black intellectuals were more than capable of addressing the

problems besetting not only their community but also America in general

and of suggesting new directions for both.

Banner-Haley's Chapter 4, "Integrating the Many Voices," and 5, "Sound and Image," are perhaps the most readily identifiable and entertaining ones in the text. These are well-documented, up-to-date accounts of the sundry cultural talents of African Americans as revealed through literature, the fine arts, and mass media. Names of artists, many familiar to contemporary readers, are touted for shaping and developing African American culture, a creative process which is essential to the legacy of American culture at large. Banner-Haley aptly coins the phrase integrative cultural diversity to describe what at its best African American literature, art, and music contributed to the fruits of integration--namely, a "newly complex image of Afro America" which allowed African Americans to "be free to depict [their] culture openly and completely, warts and all," emphasizing lifestyles that would prove "uplifting and positive" as well as informative and influential to the larger society. From the wide and impressive range of the music--gospel, rock`n'roll, jazz, and blues--to impressive literary works evolving out of the Harlem Renaissance, Banner-Haley gives credence to African American achievement in the arts, showing their effects on defining, characterizing, depicting, and promoting a more complex, three-dimensional image of black America.

Contemporary readers will enjoy the sixth and final chapter of Banner-Haley's text, "Changing the Guard," as Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier, Spike Lee, Eddie Murphy, and others round out Banner-Haley s cataloging of blacks who have contributed immensely to the shaping of modern-day African American life.

Reading Banner-Haley's text leaves one with a renewed sense of pride and faith in African Americans' ability to move into the mainstream of American culture while at the same time realizing, accepting, and celebrating their blackness. His text provides the rhyme and reason for the paths blacks have taken and not taken; it firmly establishes the "fruits" or roots of their painstaking labors; it provides an objective account--sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet--of their fears/triumphs, trials/tribulations, successes/failures, wisdom/stupidity, talents/ frivolities, collective visions and individual insights. Banner-Haley's account of three decades of African American history is scholarly and moving. His book is worth reading and discussing with others not only because it is informative, but also it is entertaining.