A major purpose of this study was to identify the five most outstanding black scholars in the social sciences and humanities in the United States and to determine how they achieved eminence. The study focuses on their unfolding careers, the decisive events in their lives, interconnections in their life histories, and social interaction between them and others in society. Five hundred and fifty-four members of social science and humanities professional associations ranked and nominated the black scholars. These respondents also filled out a brief questionnaire that included information on their own educational and occupational mobility and success. The five nominated scholars were John Hope Franklin, W. Arthur Lewis, Kenneth B. Clark, Matthew Holden, Jr., and Darwin T. Turner. These scholars were asked questions about family background and economic circumstances; community race-relations climate; parent's philosophy of education; experiences in school, college, and graduate education; and career development. Using the event-structure theoretical framework of Allport, the critical events in the life histories of the five scholars were identified and case studies prepared. Among the findings are that career, education, and family development processes are relatively independent in that each process has a life-range of its own and a sequence of stages. The last part of the document contains a survey of the education and careers of respondents, which includes a demographic analysis of the study sample and an examination of career patterns by age and race. Last, the five outstanding scholars are compared to the national sample which ranked them. (NE)