Dr. Mary Patillo

M-Group proudly honors Dr. Mary Pattillo. Her research has brought the diverse experiences of middle-class Black communities to the forefront of academic discussions in urban planning and sociology, advancing our understanding of these vital perspectives. 

“At Columbia University, I met black folks who grew up in the suburbs and in white neighborhoods and I thought, ‘Really? Black people live in the suburbs?’ It was a revelation that made me aware of class diversity within the black community, which was something I wanted to study.”  Dr. Pattillo is a renowned sociology professor and ethnographer with a degree in urban studies whose multi-faceted career focuses on the black middle class and their experiences with urban housing issues, public education, and the criminal justice system.  

Dr. Pattillo’s work demonstrates how urban development and planning policies affect marginalized African American communities. “The Black middle class and their residential enclaves are nearly invisible to the nonblack public because of the intense (and mostly negative) attention given to poor urban ghettos,” writes Pattillo in her book Black Picket Fences.

Dr. Pattillo’s third book, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City, examines the diverse lived experiences and political views of Chicago's North Kenwood-Oakland neighborhood on the South Side, which experienced gentrification and public housing transformations in the late 1980s. Pattillo highlights the “conflicted but crucial role that middle-class blacks play in transforming such districts as they negotiate between established centers of white economic and political power and the needs of their less fortunate black neighbors.”

For further exploration: 
Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City | Black Picket Fences: Privilege & Peril among the Black Middle Class | Faculty that Inspire: Q&A with Mary Pattillo – Weinberg College News | Mary Pattillo: Department of Sociology - Northwestern University