Part detective tale, part social and cultural narrative, Black Gotham
is Carla Peterson's riveting account of her quest to reconstruct the
lives of her nineteenth-century ancestors. As she shares their stories
and those of their friends, neighbors, and business associates, she
illuminates the greater history of African-American elites in New York
City.
Black Gotham challenges many of the accepted
"truths" about African-American history, including the assumption that
the phrase "nineteenth-century black Americans" means enslaved people,
that "New York state before the Civil War" refers to a place of
freedom, and that a black elite did not exist until the twentieth
century. Beginning her story in the 1820s, Peterson focuses on the
pupils of the Mulberry Street School, the graduates of which went on to
become eminent African-American leaders. She traces their political
activities as well as their many achievements in trade, business, and
the professions against the backdrop of the expansion of scientific
racism, the trauma of the Civil War draft riots, and the rise of Jim
Crow.
Told in a vivid, fast-paced style, Black Gotham
is an important account of the rarely acknowledged achievements of
nineteenth-century African Americans and brings to the forefront a
vital yet forgotten part of American history and culture.
