Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era
    Unavailable
    The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era
    Unavailable
    The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era
    Ebook718 pages10 hours

    The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era

    By Elizabeth Dowling Taylor

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    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.

    In the wake of the Civil War, Daniel Murray, born free and educated in Baltimore, was in the vanguard of Washington, D.C.’s black upper class. Appointed Assistant Librarian at the Library of Congress—at a time when government appointments were the most prestigious positions available for blacks—Murray became wealthy through his business as a construction contractor and married a college-educated socialite. The Murrays’ social circles included some of the first African-American U.S. Senators and Congressmen, and their children went to the best colleges—Harvard and Cornell.

    Though Murray and other black elite of his time were primed to assimilate into the cultural fabric as Americans first and people of color second, their prospects were crushed by Jim Crow segregation and the capitulation to white supremacist groups by the government, which turned a blind eye to their unlawful—often murderous—acts. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor traces the rise, fall, and disillusionment of upper-class African Americans, revealing that they were a representation not of hypothetical achievement but what could be realized by African Americans through education and equal opportunities.

    As she makes clear, these well-educated and wealthy elite were living proof that African Americans did not lack ability to fully participate in the social contract as white supremacists claimed, making their subsequent fall when Reconstruction was prematurely abandoned all the more tragic. Illuminating and powerful, her magnificent work brings to life a dark chapter of American history that too many Americans have yet to recognize.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 31, 2017
    ISBN9780062346117
    Author

    Elizabeth Dowling Taylor

    Elizabeth Dowling Taylor is the New York Times bestselling author of A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons. She received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, and over her twenty-two-year career in museum education and research has held the positions of director of interpretation at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and director of education at James Madison’s Montpelier. She is now an independent scholar and lecturer and a fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities in Charlottesville.

    Read more from Elizabeth Dowling Taylor

    Related to The Original Black Elite

    Related ebooks

    Ethnic Studies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Reviews for The Original Black Elite

    4/5

    9 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The books get gradually better through the series. If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top
    • 3/5
      This book tells the story of upwardly mobile African Americans who prospered and formed their own upper class in Washington, DC during Reconstruction and then how it declined as Jim Crow laws became the rule in the United States.The book uses one family, that of Daniel Murray (1851 - 1925) to illustrate how the success of this group of African-Americans became regarded as a threat to the larger white society and how laws (as well as institutional norms) were erected to hold them back and to assure the superiority of white Americans. They more I read books about black history in this country, the more I wonder why white people in this country are so insecure and afraid.