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Wilson contends that technological advances in the last couple of decades have exacerbated the problem.
    â€œI think that the disadvantaged Blacks have really been hard hit by changes in the economy,” Professor Wilson said in a 1997 interview on PBS. “The computer revolution, changes in scale-based technology, the internationalization of economic activity had combined to decrease the demand for low-skilled workers . . . the gap between low-scale and higher scale workers is widening. Because of historic racism, there are a disproportionate number of Blacks in the low-scale, poorly educated category, and they are falling further and further behind.”
    That day at J’s Fresh Meats, we had unknowingly thrust ourselves into this more delicate part of the story: the widening chasm between the Black underclass and upwardly mobile Blacks. We realized that this
experiment was not just about what we could teach an economically estranged and racially divided America; this journey would also teach us about our privileged roles as upper-class Blacks.
    As in every group, social stratification exists in the Black community. But our common history, the solidarity it fostered, and the culture we had created together always helped us to overcome those differences. For the most part, tensions among the classes did not exist. The lower-class Blacks believed in and admired the upper-class Blacks, and vice versa. Regardless of our socioeconomic status, we all had a vested interest in the struggle for freedom and equality.
    Collectively, we fought to ensure that some of us would be successful, a theory that W. E. B. Du Bois delineated in 1903, known as “The Talented Tenth.” Essentially, Du Bois believed all African Americans must push for the most talented to succeed. “Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth,” he wrote. “It is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the mass away from the contamination and death of the worst, in their own and other races.”
    His vision was to develop Black men and women primarily through higher education. These exceptional few—teachers, doctors, lawyers, or engineers—would then become leaders in the community. It was a strategy dependent on the desire of those in the upper class to leverage their power and prosperity to help the underclass rather than improve their own individual standing.
    â€œEducation and work are the levers to uplift a people,” he explained. “Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work—it must teach Life. The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must be made leaders of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do this work and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.”
    Beyond leading our race with their education, wealth, and access, those who’d “made it” would serve another purpose, Du Bois contended. They’d explode or dismantle the foundations of the racist paradigm—that Blacks were inferior.

    The problem is that The Talented Tenth was an idea conceived at a time when political liberty was still an elusive goal. In the ’40s, ’50s, and’60s we were fighting for the right to vote, for equal opportunity in the workplace, and for school integration. As these dreams became realized and The Talented Tenth (TT) population increased, there was a blossoming of professional organizations, alumni associations, and social and neighborhood groups. These societies became increasingly popular, but they were less a means to enhance Black solidarity and more a way to allow the elite to interact with their own within White society. There are dozens of these groups now, from Jack and Jill, The Links, and Mocha Moms to the National Black MBA Association and Black Ivy