Does anyone one know how there were middle class Black people during the time of Jim Crow? Maybe not on par?

Wow. My mother's side of the family is/was considered among the Black elite. My father's side of the family was always Black middle-classed.

This happened for many reasons...

Most "well off" Black people before the end and after slavery tended to be related to Whites. Being partially White, the slave owners tended to be more lenient with these people or give them access to money that others didn't have. Many historically Black colleges were created in hopes of educating partially Black children of Whites or relations that were partially Black.

These Black people tended to be "free" more often as they were freed or allowed, before other Black people, to work to pay for their freedom.

So that is one of the early "characteristics" as it were of the Black elite...that many of them were free years prior to the Emancipation.

Many of these same kinds of people tended to either go abroad for an education (as some of my own relatives did) or got to go to White universities North and East or to the Black colleges that were founded not too long after Emancipation.

Of course, education brings success, to a degree. Although MOST people in the nation were not very well educated until after World War II and really not until the loan programs of the 1960s, there were always people who did get to go to college and such.

A Black community still needs doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, funeral homes, engineers, seamstresses, ministers, stores, hair salons, etc. The Black middle class was especially made up of professionals and private businessmen (like salon owners and funeral home people).

There is a side of my family that almost exclusively provided medical services to people in an area of Louisiana, before they came to Houston, TX and parts of California.

Many of these people were light-skinned, as this was more acceptable and as they were related to more Whites, and many looked White, like a lot of the people on my mother's side of the family.

On my mom's side, people helped people out by going to stores (outside the area where people knew they were Black) and buying things that they couldn't get.

There is a group of the Black middle class who owned restaurants. Black people couldn't eat in White restaurants in the South, and in the West, Midwest, North, East, it was frowned upon and the social practices were as good as the South's Jim Crow laws....people wouldn't serve you, though no law was in place.

People who were maids, butlers, sharecroppers, etc. did have a little money and wherever possible they spent it with their own people, not out of racism but because others wouldn't bother with them, even to make money.

Now, of course, the Black middle class couldn't help everyone. In some instances, it was due to terrorism. Many Black doctors, teachers, dentists, etc. were run out of town by angry mobs who feared these people would be bad examples to the Black people already there.

As many of the Black middle classed were involved with the NAACP and such, the Whites in these places feared people would try and vote or demand fair hiring practices.

Other kindly White groups have had businesses, practices, etc in Black communities.

Some Black people, especially in the South but also Black people who worked in factories and such in the North and East, had to deal with predatory people who sold them things..you know the "company store" idea....

Other groups of people have always had a middle class, especially in light of the fact that WASP people didn't want Asians, Latinos, and various White ethnic groups in their areas.

There were Black doctors, lawyers, and other professional level black people during this time, because everything was segregated. There were separate hospitals, schools, barber shops, clothing stores, etc. that only served the Black population, and many blacks worked in this establishments.

There were also black colleges, known today as Historically Black colleges or universities, that blacks could go to, because they could not attend white colleges. So a middle class existed and thrived, mainly in the North and large cities in the South and West.

There was even a town in Tulsa Oklahoma, a section called Greenwood, that was so prosperous it was called Black Wall Street. It was burned down http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood,_Tulsa,_Okl...

After the Civil War ended, many plantation owners could no longer afford to keep all their land without slaves to work on it, so they would sell bits of their land to their now free slaves. The slaves worked the land well, since they already knew how, and lived below their means saving money to eventually become middle class.

And now, if those poor freed slaves were alive now to see their descendants, they would be furious! They didn't work that hard so their great-great-great-grandchildren could commit drive-bys, sell drugs, and have so many kids, they forgot which ones belong to them.

So anyway, that's your answer.

there were middle class african americans. there were even a few upper class, economically. there were middle and upper class mexican americans. there were some wealthy chinese.