The Good Black: A True Story of Race in America

The facts of what happened to Lawrence Mungin are indisputable: demeaning work, insulting treatment, zero advancement; what is in question is why he was treated in such a way. When Mungin took his complaint to court, he claimed racial discrimination; Katten Muchin & Zavis didn't deny their mistreatment but insisted that, far from being racially motivated, it was simply the way the firm treated all its employees. Barrett, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, chronicles Mungin's life, his lawsuit, and the bitter aftermath of the trial in a book that raises more questions than it answers--questions about the American way of doing business that should trouble every American, white or black.

Product Description
A controversial case, a controversial ruling-the compelling story of a black man's journey through a mostly white world

Featuring a new Afterword for the paperback edition

Larry Mungin spent his life preparing to succeed in the white world. He looked away from racial inequality and hostility, believing he'd make it if he worked hard and played by the rules. He rose from a Queens housing project to Harvard Law School, and went on to practice law at major corporate firms. But just at the point when he thought he'd make it, when he should have been considered for partnership, he sued his employer for racial discrimination. The firm claimed it went out of its way to help Larry because of his race, while Larry thought he'd been treated unfairly. Was Larry a victim of racial discrimination, or just another victim of the typical dog-eat-dog corporate law culture? A thought-provoking courtroom drama with the fast pace of a commercial novel, The Good Black asks readers to rethink their ideas about race and is a fascinating look at the inner workings of the legal profession.

"Superb and provocative . . . It will rivet anyone wondering why the struggle to racially integrate corporate America has made such scant progress."-The Washington Post

It's "death of a thousand cuts" - all the while the "cutter" scoffing at the "cuttee" for protesting the cuts...

Mungin experiences these "cuts" and feels them especially keenly because he considers himself a "good black". The difficulty is that if he is the receipient of both generalized bad treatment (as experienced by others at his firm) AND subtle racism, more than likely the racism will also be lumped into the "general bad treatment" category.

Well worth reading for insights into the way business gets done in professional services/law firms. Another GREAT read is Joseph Jett's "Black and White on Wall Street: The Untold Story of the Man Wrongly Accused of Bringing Down Kidder Peabody".


A disturbing study of a lawyer's struggle with racism   February 23, 1999
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Paul Barrett has done a superb job of describing one man's struggle to work within a system which later betrays him. Barrett knows his subject well, as they were roommates in law school but he reports Larry Mungin's professional experiences so impartially that the reader is forced to draw his own conclusions. Was Larry Mungin the victim of racism in the law firm for which he worked? We see the evidence and while our hearts bleed for him and the way he is treated, we are invited into the workings of a modern day law firm where the number of hours billed is what counts. We suffer with our accomplished black lawyer as he is humiliated and we watch his career and his hopes for a partnership crumble. Barrett tells the story so skillfully that the reader becomes involved in the intrigue and the book is difficult to put down. Modern law firms are not very pretty places and we begin to wonder if Mungin's treatment differs from that of his white colleagues. Are they all treated badly? This is what the firm claims in the discrimination lawsuit which follows. Racism is sometimes as insidious as cancer and while the judges may not be certain that Mungin was its victim, we know that it exists and that it contributed to the despair of this "good black." This book is a must for lawyers and lay people - for everyone. Barrett has written a masterful work and has left his readers anxious for his friend and even more anxious for the good blacks and good minorities everywhere.


Subtle Discrimination   May 17, 2000
Hanoch Sheinman (Princeton, NJ)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Many professional liberals believe that they (we) do not have pernicious racial prejudices. After all, if they did, would they not fail to be genuine liberals? The story of Larry Mungin is, I think, a counterexample to this belief. It shows that professionals who think of themselves as liberals, and who are in fact liberals, are not immune to wronfgul racial prejudices. So perhaps the belief should be revised. Perhaps we should concede that we, that is professionals and self-professed liberals, sometimes have bad racial prejudices. May it not be argued, instead, that what make us liberals is the fact that we do not *act on* such prejudices, that we do not let wrongful prejudices affect our conduct?

If I'm right, however, the story of Larry Mungin is a counterexample to *this* belief too. We, professional liberals etc., may not only have pernicious racial prejudices; we may also let them affect our conduct toward people of races different from ours.

"The Good Black" is not a story of explicit race discrimination. The facts are subtle and are propertly presented as such by the author. But at no point does the subtelty of the facts obscure the impression that this is a case in which a person's race detrimentally affected his prospects in society.


As entertaining as it is instructive about law and race.   February 5, 1999
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

When you are as skeptical and cynical as I am, it is rare that you recommend anything to anyone. However, in this instance I felt compelled to pass along some thoughts on this book.

The book is about an African-American man, named Lawrence Mungin, who rose from his inner-city beginnings to earn double degrees from Harvard University, and practice law at some of America's most esteemed corporate law firms. Ultimately, he ends up suing a large Chicago firm for race discrimination, notwithstanding having spent his life resolutely subscribing to the belief that he was a "human being first, an American second, and a black third." The book is not only a great court room drama, but, more importantly, a poignant insight into both the obtuse management of large law firms and the opposing views of racism in middle-class America.

Among the many interesting twists in the book is that Paul Barrett was Larry Mungin's roommate at Harvard Law School. That Mr. Barrett is able to tell as objective a story as he did is as unlikely as it is instructive.

This book, I think, will come to be regarded as an important piece of work in American race-relation scholarship, for it serves as a warning that the most insidious kind of racism can sometimes be that which is the least perceptible.


First Hand Confirmation   July 29, 2001
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

I knew Larry and the inner workings of the firm to which he refers. His treatment was not a figment of his imagination, and the firm did not treat everyone with equal rudeness. There was and is a subtle distinction in how those of color are treated, particularly at the professional level. Mungin's accountings regarding his discrimination by a powerhouse firm were poignant, as is his self rediscovery. Albeit idealistic, he was most mistaken in his belief that stripping away all point of reference to common stereotypes would assist him in ascent to the top legal echelons.

While I appreciate the objectivity with which Barrett pursued the case and Mungin's cultural dynamic, his perspective can never truly encapsulate the very real experience one encounters at KMZ. The mere fact that a partner "anonymously" characterizes black employees of Ivy standing as "affirmative action failures" indicates the pervasive level of assumptions made regarding one's true capability, or why those students are actually admitted. One has to climb and claw not once or twice, but continually through a maze of prejudgment, dehumanization and subtle disparity in treatment.

Thanks for telling a story which needs to be told, again and again.