the nation’s highest-income majority-black county stands out for a different reason....

[Jesus Malverde]

African Americans for decades flocked to Prince George’s County to be part of a phenomenon that has been rare in American history: a community that grew more upscale as it became more black.

The county became a national symbol of the American Dream with a black twist. Families moved into expansive new homes, with rolling lawns, nearby golf courses and, most of all, neighbors who looked like them. In the early 2000s, home prices soared — some well beyond $1?million — allowing many African Americans to build the kind of wealth their elders could only imagine.

But today, the nation’s highest-income majority-black county stands out for a different reason — its residents have lost far more wealth than families in neighboring, majority-white suburbs. And while every one of these surrounding counties is enjoying a strong rebound in housing prices and their economies, Prince George’s is lagging far behind, and local economists say a full recovery appears unlikely anytime soon.

The same reversal of fortune is playing out across the country as black families who worked painstakingly to climb into the middle class are seeing their financial foundation for future generations collapse. Although African Americans have made once-unthinkable political and social gains since the civil rights era, the severe and continuing damage wrought by the downturn — an entire generation of wealth was wiped out — has raised a vexing question: Why don’t black middle-class families enjoy the same level of economic security as their white counterparts?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/01/24/the-american-dream-shatters-in-prince-georges-county/

The drama is the economy....

[JustAnotherGen]

1. When I left Western NY - several of my high school friends who

Are also black - left at the same time. We are all children of the last "leavers" in the Great Migration.

Three went back to Atlanta (had attended University there), two of us to NJ, 5 to to Houston/Austin, and 1 to PG county.

She - that one - just posted this on FB. The article is filled with truth. Interesting convo to watch with her neighbors and friends in that area.

The rest of us might be the minority in our community - but from employment numbers to home values - we've recovered since we left for the heat of warmer suns and access to beaches.

[SummerSnow]

2. I have many family members that went back to Atlanta too.

My grandparents who were born in Atlanta in the late 1800's left to come to NYC in 1920 cause he was an educated black man and he was going to be lynched that week by the KKK. One of his white co-workers told him this. He took my grandmother and their 3 young children and came to NYC. I am also a child of the Great Migration. I have 2 family members that live in Prince George , they're doing quite well for themselves and some of their friends there have been through some economic problems too.

[JustAnotherGen]

4. Side bar - where did he attend school?

He would be my dad's parents' peers. Grand daddy was a Morehouse grad and grand mama Spelman. Their ages indicate they would have been there at the same time.

My grandfathers dad had several farms - he couldn't get the job in Finance he wanted . . . All the firms in NYC had their token black, Jew, woman so he couldn't get in the door. He went into the liquor "business" in Alabama instead.

[SummerSnow]

6. Never knew where he attended school. he died before I was born. Unfortunately I never

asked my grandmother.

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. We used to call those folks the "PG bourgeoisie."

There were interesting class distinctions/tensions in the DC area.

[kwassa]

5. This continues a long history in discrminatory housing practices ...

Even in peak real estate times, houses in PG that were identical to houses in the next county over were worth a lot less money. I'm talking about brand new houses in beautiful subdivisions.