Sub-par financial literacy leading to poor economic decisions is an area of considerable concern in an era in which Americans increasingly need to plan for their financial future. For the past ten years, African Americans have consistently scored below their White counterparts on financial literacy measures even after controlling for social class. This dissertation argues that African Americans' historical and economical experiences have shaped the lens through which they see money matters, and in turn, these experiences inform their "appropriate" behavior and responses to financial situations. A particular kind of knowledge has been developed and transmitted in the Black community that goes against, and in some ways supersedes, mainstream societal expectations of financially savvy behavior.;Seventeen middle class African Americans in the Northeast were selected using a convenience sample participated in 1½-2 hour exploratory interviews. Findings informed what is being termed Ethnic Money Knowledge (EMK) which is a consideration of how an ethnic group views economic issues and how their historical experiences and cultural values have informed/shaped their financial behavior. The major finding is that middle class African American family members in this study feel obligated to financially support their extended and even fictive kin financially, which overrides mainstream financial advice to secure nuclear family needs first. This cultural norm is transmitted through explicit financial communication (EFC) and implicit financial communication (IFC) within the family, particularly those of Northern, Southern, middle class, and working class origins. Participants with Caribbean roots were more explicitly exposed to financially savvy behavior and conversation. IFC was less open but, in general, was gleaned from the females within the family in which the participants were raised.
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