Assimilation Blues: Black Families In White Communities, Who Succeeds And Why

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? an in-depth look at Black families in a White community.

“A brutally honest account of what it’s really like to grow up Black inside a White world.” –Lawrence Otis Graham, author of Our Kind of People 

From the author of the widely acclaimed Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and in-depth look at Black families in a White community.

What does it mean to be Black in the predominantly White, middle-class community of “Sun Beach,” a place some call “paradise?” Is it the ultimate symbol of success? Or will one pay in isolation, alienation, rootlessness?

Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, interviewed Black families extensively to identify the sacrifices and achievements necessary to survive and prosper in a White community. By listening to the individual voices of these children and their parents, Dr. Tatum skillfully probes the complex questions of identity that arise for a visible people rendered invisible by their surroundings.  

• “Assimilation Blues contributes to an expanding body of comparative family studies… a springboard for the development of more directly comparative analysis. Family research involving issues of race and class should flow naturally from insights suggested by this work. As a significant contribution to the way we think about families, black-white relations, and social change, the book is well worth serious examination by scholars, as well as individals who find themselves in similar circumstances.”
  Contemporary Sociology
• “Assimilation Blues is a clever and courageous examination of what happens to the Black family as it attempts to flourish within White society. When Professor Tatum introduces us to “Sun Beach,” in Assimilation Blues, she gives us a brutally honest account of what it’s really like to grow up Black inside a White world.”
  Lawrence Otis Graham, author of Our Kind of People