“Class, Regionality, and Leisure Among Urban Black Americans: The Post-Civil Rights Era”

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Abstract
This article discusses leisure behavior among Black Americans in the post-civil rights era. A model composed of social class and intragroup regionality variables is offered to explain leisure patterns. The analysis of empirical data collected by telephone interview (N = 311) in a southwest Chicago community revealed that the number of full-time employed adults in the household most accurately predicts participation across activities but that social class and regionality are also important variables. The analysis showed that participants in metropolitan activities are likely to be middle class, from the urban North, and live in families with two or more full-time employed adults. These findings suggest that explanations of Black American life in the post-civil rights era should include vertical as well as horizontal differentiation of the Black American social structure.