Two Families That Have Made It

In lifestyle, attitude and aspiration, the black middle class is almost as diverse as any other ethnic group of comparable income. Some of this diversity is shown in the following two portraits, one of a longestablished, upper-middle-income black family in the Deep South, another of a newly arrived middle-income couple in the North.

The Rising Heir

On the outskirts of Birmingham stands the black suburban development of Briarmont, where handsome houses sprawl over huge lots arrayed along winding, tree-lined streets. One of the most attractive homes is a $35,000 three-bedroom ranch with avocado green paneling, a sunken living room and a two-car garage. A dark blue Cadillac and a tan Buick compact decorate the driveway. This is the home of J. Mason Davis and June Davis and their two children, the family on TIME'S cover.

Lawyer, businessman and politician, Davis, 38, personifies the growing self-confidence and influence of Birmingham's black upper middle class. He is a member of both the state and county Democratic executive committees. His law practice is expanding so quickly that last year he took on a junior partner and now he plans to add another. Important segments of the city's black leadership are urging him to run for mayor.

Davis' rise is the culmination of the dreams of his grandfather, C.M. Harris, who at the turn of the century determined to carve out an economic niche that would shelter his descendants from segregation. He started a funeral home and later founded the Protective Industrial Insurance Co. of Alabama. In 1967 it put up the money with which the Acamar Realty and Insurance Agency--of which Davis is part owner--bought the site for Briarmont. The profits from developing it and other business deals, plus the growing income from his law practice (more than $40,000 last year), could some day make Davis a millionaire.

He has seen Birmingham change from a city so segregated that civil rights workers called it the "toughest town outside of South Africa" to an "All-America" city cited by the National Municipal League for its progress in race relations. In 1961, when Davis returned with a degree from the University of Buffalo law school, "you could feel the tension. The white lawyers weren't friendly. You sort of felt alone." Today, things are relaxed enough for Davis to joke with white judges about his greatgrandfather, B.F. Saffold, a 19th century justice on Alabama's supreme court. June Davis, on her job as a psychologist for the city schools, mixes easily with the integrated staff. Says she: "We get along fine, but I don't tell myself that we're in love with each other."

Davis' aristocratic background could hamper his political ambitions. "When you come from a middle-class bag, it's not easy to convince the masses that you're an allright dude," he admits. Sometimes he must choose between black solidarity and his own best judgment. Example: the county Democratic committee "had to endorse a black for the county commission even though there was a Jewish fellow who was the better candidate. If we blacks on the commission had taken the stump for the Jewish fellow, we would have been vilified as Uncle Toms."

There is, Davis believes, a rift between the black middle class and the black poor, which is reflected in a wave of burglaries in Briarmont and other "good" black neighborhoods. Since 1971 the Davises have twice been burglarized; they now have iron bars on their windows and keep a German shepherd dog named Santana.

Above all, Davis is concerned with preserving and building on his family's money. "Every person who lived during the Depression feels a sense of pre-cariousness," he says. "I hope that my children always have a wary eye toward their security. It may be that three generations of blacks amass something and that the fourth generation will rip it off." The Davises' children, Karen, 16, and Jay, 11, are being trained to carry on the family tradition. Karen wants to become a musician, but her father hopes to persuade her to become a lawyer. "She's quite a politician," he says. "She went out of her way to meet white kids at high school, while other black kids segregated themselves." As for Jay, Davis says: "There's nothing I'd like better than for him to get his law degree and come back and run the business."

The Striving Entrepreneur

Nearly every Friday, Percy E. Hughes of suburban Greenburgh, N.Y., rushes home from work, quickly changes clothes and with his wife Jackie speeds down the parkway to the evening service at the Bronx Church of God in Christ. Like many black families who have only recently arrived in the middle class, the Hugheses have built their lives around the church. In fact, their dedication to the fundamentalist Pentecostal church may help them achieve one of the most important middle-class aspirations: buying a home. By encouraging the Hugheses' frugality, the church is helping them save the money for a down payment.

At 31, Percy Hughes is a striver who is building a lawn-care business. He has been interested in gardening since he earned pocket money with his grandfather's lawn mower in Gordonsville, Va. At 13 he began spending summers helping his father, who migrated to Greenburgh and had a gardening service. Hughes joined him full time in 1961 after dropping out of a segregated high school because "I had faith I wasn't going to pass English."

Six years later, after he married Jackie, whom he had met at church, his father set him up in the trade. "He gave me an old truck, two mowers and about ten clients," Hughes recalls. Now he owns two trucks and several thousand dollars' worth of lawn-care equipment and employs several workers at $3.50 an hour. He has 45 customers who pay him an average $60 a month; about two-thirds of them, including Singer Cab Calloway and Dancer Pearl Primus, are black. That gives him a measure of satisfaction: "I like to see my people progress. I don't envy them. I take pride in their success because I know where they came from."

Last year Hughes cleared $7,000 from the business and another $1,300 working during the cold, off-season months as a security guard. His wife earns $9,400 as a secretary to David Robinson III, a black lawyer who is regional counsel to Xerox. She started in secretarial work by enrolling in a three-month program in which IBM paid people to study shorthand, typing and English. Now she is learning to be a legal secretary so that she can earn still more.

The Hugheses have something that many other Americans would envy: an almost debt-free life. From the plastic-slipcovered furniture to the color television console, everything in their $217-a-month, two-bedroom apartment is fully paid for. Their only major bill is the note on their 1972 Ford Gran Torino Sport, which will be paid off this year. The Hugheses hope to buy a home within the next five years. Meanwhile, says Hughes, "we're living comfortable, but it'll take me a few years to reach certain goals. I'm happy with the fact that I came up instead of going backwards."

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