Contemporary Respectability Politics: How Black Chicagoans Navigate the Respectability Politics

This thesis investigates how contemporary Black Americans, particularly those residing in Chicago, experience and navigate respectability politics in their daily lives. Drawing from Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham's foundational concept of the "politics of respectability," the study explores how this framework, once centered on moral uplift through conformity to dominant social norms, persists and evolves in modern contexts. Through a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative survey analysis (n=146) with qualitative in-depth interviews (n=10), the project examines how emotions related to the perception of Black Americans are shaped by age, education, and political affiliation. Survey data revealed that feelings such as pride, frustration, and shame are widely shared across demographic lines, suggesting a continued salience of respectability politics regardless of cohort or educational attainment. The interviews add depth to these findings, uncovering three primary themes: the centrality of Black identity and community; emotional responses to perceptions of Blackness; and the enduring relevance of respectability norms. Participants consistently reported feeling more comfortable among other Black people and often expressed concern about how Black behavior might be perceived in predominantly white spaces. Even young, college-educated respondents, who were critical of respectability politics, acknowledged internalizing its expectations as a strategy of survival and group solidarity. By integrating survey-based regression models with grounded theory coding of interviews, this study offers a novel empirical contribution to ongoing debates in Black political thought and sociology. It reveals that respectability politics is not simply a relic of older generations but an adaptive and enduring form of social navigation. Ultimately, this project emphasizes the complexity of Black identity formation, demonstrating how cultural and emotional experiences intersect with political behavior in ways that challenge simplistic assumptions about generational or ideological divides. It invites further reflection on how respectability functions as both burden and resource within Black communities today.