Despite this, understanding the benefits of accumulated interest made them want to build their own institutions of wealth. From 1888 to 1934, 134 banks for blacks opened, but many dissolved due to lack of experience and education in running a bank, risky investments in black businesses and failed real estate holdings (Frazier). Regardless, the importance of banks was cemented in the minds of blacks that were still looking for ways to move up the economic …show more content…
And many did not realize that despite their skin color, education and adopted behaviors, they were still African Americans in a racially segregated country that limited black movement within the larger socioeconomic sphere. Similarly to Dr. Mary Pattillo’s assertion of the contemporary middle class, these black elites were in a highly susceptible position because most white Americans were still highly racist and would rather uplift another white person than a black one. And with the swelling numbers of European immigrants migrating to America, they began replacing black elites in service jobs while a newly emerging white middle class also shut them out. The new white upper class began distancing themselves by migrating away from urban communities and further restricting blacks from entering their establishments to perform work. And the association to whites, which helped to create their status level, would ironically be their demise and the driving force behind their involuntary assimilation with the darker skinned blacks they isolated. This signaled the rise of Jim Crow and the ending of the old black bourgeoisie reign atop the black social and economic