布局困境：标题，内容和页脚水平扩展背景颜色（但同时具有居中内容）？

I created a layout were everything is centered (with the "margin="0 auto" technique). I also wanted the header and footer to be black and expand to both sides when the browser enlarge to the sides. If I center everything the black background will center too and it wont expand indefinably. The only solution I found was to apply the background style to the header and footer and using a class inside them (.container) to center the content (I think Stack Overflow uses this technique with the footer). It's nice but I would like to know if there's a better way rather than adding additional divs? I created a layout were everything is centered