This is 99% Invisible. I'm Christopher Johnson, filling in this week for Roman Mars.

In the mid-1970s, the national media was reporting on the rise of a new socioeconomic group

that was quickly gaining unprecedented access to jobs, education, backyard swimming pools, the good life.

Journalists seem fixated on what many were calling the, quote,

new black middle class.

Black families have entered the mainstream of American life in larger numbers than ever before

in our history.

No one of them is exceptional, but their total story is.

The media's obsession at the time was with how, for this one section of Black America,

the protests and violence of the 1960s seemed to be cross-fading into quiet middle-class achievement.

Nowhere near as exciting as a riot or a burning as the move into middle-income America,

but this is what black Americans are achieving more than ever before.

In August 1973, Ebony Magazine had its own special issue all about the black metal class.

On the cover, there was a fish-eye photo of an anonymous black man

wearing a crisp suit with a tight afro and a briefcase walking through the city with purpose.

The stars of the moment were regular ascendant black Americans.

We were dealing with people that were having economic stability for the first time in

generations.

This is writer and cultural critic Craig Seymour.

Although there'd always been some version of the black middle class, Craig says this

group of Black Americans was different.

The Black middle class of the 70s was really reaching the world with arms wide open

...