Lori Latrice Martin is Professor and Associate Dean at Louisiana State University. She is author of America in Denial: How Race-Fair Policies Reinforce Racial Inequality in America, also by SUNY Press.

"Refusing to make Simpson into either saint or sinner, Martin engages O.J.'s infamy as both an object lesson and entrée into a larger analysis of the stormy relationship between Blackness and wealth, all within the raging tempest of an American apartheid. A whirlwind tour from 'Black Wall Street' in the '20s, reactions against E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoise in the '50s, to Jay-Z's 2020 viral song 'The Story of O.J.', Martin provides an empirical shelter from the downpour of pathological narratives of Black dysfunction and one-sided tales of Black homogeneity. Out of the fog of raced and classed mythologies, Martin shines a light on the complexities, contradictions, and creations of Black wealth. The Story of O.J. thus stands as a rich almanac that not only provocatively recasts the paleoclimate of race and class in new perspectives, but forecasts both clear and blustery conditions to befall us still." — Matthew W. Hughey coauthor of Racialized Media: The Design, Delivery, and Decoding of Race and Ethnicity.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Racial Wealth Inequality in America2. Black Tulsa Before the Massacre: The Way We Never Were3. E. Franklin Frazier and the Black Bourgeoise: Revisited4. The Story of O. J.5. Building Black WealthConclusionBibliographyIndex

Lori Latrice Martin is Professor and Associate Dean at Louisiana State University. She is author of America in Denial: How Race-Fair Policies Reinforce Racial Inequality in America, also by SUNY Press.

"Refusing to make Simpson into either saint or sinner, Martin engages O.J.'s infamy as both an object lesson and entrée into a larger analysis of the stormy relationship between Blackness and wealth, all within the raging tempest of an American apartheid. A whirlwind tour from 'Black Wall Street' in the '20s, reactions against E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoise in the '50s, to Jay-Z's 2020 viral song 'The Story of O.J.', Martin provides an empirical shelter from the downpour of pathological narratives of Black dysfunction and one-sided tales of Black homogeneity. Out of the fog of raced and classed mythologies, Martin shines a light on the complexities, contradictions, and creations of Black wealth. The Story of O.J. thus stands as a rich almanac that not only provocatively recasts the paleoclimate of race and class in new perspectives, but forecasts both clear and blustery conditions to befall us still." — Matthew W. Hughey coauthor of Racialized Media: The Design, Delivery, and Decoding of Race and Ethnicity.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Racial Wealth Inequality in America2. Black Tulsa Before the Massacre: The Way We Never Were3. E. Franklin Frazier and the Black Bourgeoise: Revisited4. The Story of O. J.5. Building Black WealthConclusionBibliographyIndex

Lori Latrice Martin is Professor and Associate Dean at Louisiana State University. She is author of America in Denial: How Race-Fair Policies Reinforce Racial Inequality in America, also by SUNY Press.

"Refusing to make Simpson into either saint or sinner, Martin engages O.J.'s infamy as both an object lesson and entrée into a larger analysis of the stormy relationship between Blackness and wealth, all within the raging tempest of an American apartheid. A whirlwind tour from 'Black Wall Street' in the '20s, reactions against E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoise in the '50s, to Jay-Z's 2020 viral song 'The Story of O.J.', Martin provides an empirical shelter from the downpour of pathological narratives of Black dysfunction and one-sided tales of Black homogeneity. Out of the fog of raced and classed mythologies, Martin shines a light on the complexities, contradictions, and creations of Black wealth. The Story of O.J. thus stands as a rich almanac that not only provocatively recasts the paleoclimate of race and class in new perspectives, but forecasts both clear and blustery conditions to befall us still." — Matthew W. Hughey coauthor of Racialized Media: The Design, Delivery, and Decoding of Race and Ethnicity.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Racial Wealth Inequality in America2. Black Tulsa Before the Massacre: The Way We Never Were3. E. Franklin Frazier and the Black Bourgeoise: Revisited4. The Story of O. J.5. Building Black WealthConclusionBibliographyIndex