Get a different perspective on Black History in these two fascinating books!

Paperbacks

The Original Black Elite

In this outstanding cultural biography, the author of the New York Times bestseller A Slave in the White House chronicles a critical yet overlooked chapter in American history: the inspiring rise and calculated fall of the black elite, from Emancipation through Reconstruction to the Jim Crow Era--embodied in the experiences of an influential figure of the time, academic, entrepreneur, and political activist and black history pioneer Daniel Murray.

Author: Elizabeth Dowling Taylor

Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance

Mark Whitaker's Smoketown is a "rewarding trip to a forgotten special place and timeSmpo" ( Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. " Smoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other Black Renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked it...It's thanks to such a gifted storyteller as Whitaker that this forgotten chapter of American history can finally be told in all its vibrancy and glory" ( The New York Times Book Review).

Author: Mark Whitaker