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Even if they wanted to escape responsibility to the ghetto, middle-class blacks would not be able to do so. Only a few years out of the ghetto themselves, most have left close friends and relatives behind. Beyond that, many middle-class doctors, lawyers, building contractors and storekeepers have clients in the ghetto. Says Robert Perkins, a partner in a New Orleans architectural firm that designs its largest projects for the poor: "I can't forget who I am dealing with since I have to go back to them. They are our clout."
Particularly in the South, many middle-class people continue to live in the ghetto. In Winston-Salem, N.C., Alderman Charles C. Ross, a successful businessman, elects to remain in the neat white clapboard home that he bought in 1947. "Staying here," he explains, "is my way of saying to other blacks: 'You can make it if you try hard enough.' "
That the black middle class will continue to grow is beyond dispute: how fast will depend on the state of the economy and the degree of commitment by white America to making room for blacks. The impact that the black middle class will have on the rest of society is more open to question. Some skeptics doubt that it has the cohesiveness, the unity of purpose to play a commanding role in America. "There are many middle-class blacks," quips Elworth Taylor, director of planning at Chicago's Provident Hospital, "but there is no black middle class." Yet too much should not be expected too soon. Because of its origins in slavery, no other ethnic group has started so far behind in America with so many historical liabilities. For blacks the way up is all the steeper, the climb the more arduous. What is encouraging is that they seem to be making a successful ascent. Thomas Pettigrew, a social psychologist at Harvard, believes that the middle class is gaining the "know-how to pass on from generation to generation." As it does, an increasing number of blacks will meet with whites on equal terms without the insecurities that beset both races. The best guarantee of durable, amicable race relations in America is the continued growth of a strong, self-confident black middle class.