Book Description
Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide.
Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.
Customer Reviews:
Capitalism and Slavery is definitely food for the brain........2006-08-19
This is a very, very excellent piece of work. I read and studied this book when I was a teenager in high school in Trinidad. At that time I was required to study the book as part of our Caribbean History syllabus. That was over 13 years ago. So as an adult I decided to purchase the book and appreciate the information. And boy this was the best decision I ever made. I recommend people of all races and backgrounds to read this book. As the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Dr. Eric Williams has left us with a gift.
Capitalism and Slavery.......2006-05-11
The basic theory underlying Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery is that slavery in the colonies, particularly the West Indies so far as this analysis is concerned, brought about capitalism, and thereby led to its own decline.
The first five chapters of the book explain the nature of British economics prior to the American Revolution. Synthesizing information rather than expressing his own view, Williams discusses triangular trade among England, the African coast, and the slave-holding colonies. In essence, England exported goods and ships, Africa exported slaves, and the colonies exported slave-produced raw materials.
American independence destroyed the mercantilist scheme of triangular trading. The ex-colonies now had no incentive to trade with the West Indies at their monopoly prices, instead turning to French islands for their sugar, at considerably lower prices. Consequently, British businessmen were no longer interested in giving economic protection to the West Indies because doing so without mainland North America would cost them money. One basic tenet of Adam Smith's capitalism is that business should be efficient and profitable, and monopolies simply were neither. The laissez-faire approach, or Smith's "invisible hand," meant eliminating monopolies and letting economics take its course.
During this time the Industrial Revolution also occurred, generating new machinery, most notably Watt's steam engine, and simplifying the extraction of raw materials. Ironworks were now much more efficient, for example, as was the process of turning wool into useable cloth. These advantages put Great Britain in a position to economically dominate the world. During this time also Spanish colonies in South America began breaking away from Spain, opening up vast regions for British trade. Similarly, Asia became a possibility for a wide variety of goods, most notably, in the scope of Williams' book, East Indian sugar. All these opportunities and Britain's economic superiority culminated in the end of monopolistic practices.
Slavery had precipitated these developments by generating fantastic wealth through triangular trading; without slavery, that trade scheme would not have existed. Once these developments came to pass, however, slavery proved itself largely pass?. Without the monopoly on West Indian sugar, slave trading became substantially less profitable. At the same time, when the American mainland split from Great Britain, suddenly Britain was no longer dependent on slavery for economic success, but instead could be a global distributor for goods. Furthermore, abolitionists in England gave cry to the crime of slavery, since they were no longer directly dependent on it, and eventually Britain banned the slave trade.
Williams's analysis is interesting and well worth reading. That said, his assertion that slavery declined is only partly true; it was alive and well in the southern United States. Furthermore, while Williams claims slavery brought about triangular trading, which in turn brought about the Industrial Revolution, one wonders if slavery simply expedited the arrival of the Industrial Revolution. Finally, he focuses to a significant extent on British humanitarianism in ending slavery; cynically, one must consider the relevance of slavery to those humanitarians, and how many there were after the Industrial Revolution.
A wonderful thesis withstanding the tests of time.......2006-03-21
I recently read this book for graduate school and highly recommend it. This book was written in 1940 and while critics have been able to pick at a few details within the book, noone has every successfully disproven his entire thesis - that the rise of industrial capitalism would not have been possible without the existence profits derived from slavery and the slave trade. Williams does a splended job of illustrating how slavery influenced all facets of the triangular trade, which in turn shaped Britian into an economic power. It also brings put the economic reasons for the abolitionist movement (namely, that abolitionists were motivated by free-trade, no necessarily compassion in their opposition to the slave trade).This is a must-have book for anyone interested in a strictly economic look at slavery, it's rise, fall and demise.
Misunderstanding of Islamic slavery.......2005-11-13
The last two reviewers who seemed to criticize Williams for not discussing other forms of slavery miss the point. Williams was not engaged in some sort of West bashing but attempted to explain the significance of slavery in the development of the Caribbean. Insofar as Islam is concerned, the reviewers once again miss the essential point. Rather than investigate what Islam actually says about slavery they go with a knee-jerk assumption. Here is what Kecia Ali has written about slavery in Islamic society:
"The Qur'an, which Muslims believe to have been revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, makes numerous references to slaves and slavery (e.g., Q. 2.178; 16.75; 30.28). Like numerous passages in the Hebrew bible and the New Testament, the Qur'an assumes the permissibility of owning slaves, which was an established practice before its revelation. The Qur'an does not explicitly condemn slavery or attempt to abolish it. Nonetheless, it does provide a number of regulations designed to ameliorate the situation of slaves. It recommends freeing slaves, especially "believing" slaves (Q. 2.177). Manumission of a slave is required as expiation for certain misdeeds (Q. 4.92; 58.3) and another verse states that masters should allow slaves to purchase their own freedom (Q. 24.33).
The Qur'an also suggests certain means of integrating slaves, some of whom were enslaved after being captured in war, into the Muslim community. It allows slaves to marry (either other slaves or free persons; Q. 24.32; 2.221; 4.25) and prohibits owners from prostituting unwilling female slaves (Q. 24.33). Despite this protection against one form of sexual exploitation, female slaves do not have the right to grant or deny sexual access to themselves. Instead, the Qur'an permits men to have sexual access to "what their right hands possess," meaning female captives or slaves (Q. 23.5-6; 70.29-30). This was widely accepted and practiced among early Muslims; the Prophet Muhammad, for example, kept a slave-concubine (Mariya the Copt) who was given to him as a gift by the Roman governor of Alexandria.
Traditional Islamic law (fiqh) elaborates significantly on the Qur'anic material concerning slavery. The enslavement of war captives is regulated, along with the purchase and sale of slaves. While it is not permissible to enslave other Muslims, the jurists clarify that if a non-Muslim converts to Islam after enslavement, he or she remains a slave and may be lawfully purchased and sold like any other slave. (This rule closes a potential loophole allowing for slaves to gain their freedom by the simple fact of conversion.) The law also prescribes penalties for slave owners who maltreat or abuse their slaves; these penalties can include forced manumission of the slave without compensation to the owner.
Islamic law devotes special attention to regulating the practice of slave marriage and concubinage, in order to determine the paternity and/or ownership of children born to a female slave. A man cannot simultaneously own and be married to the same female slave. The male owner of a female slave can either marry her off to a different man, thus renouncing his own sexual access to her, or he may take her as his own concubine, using her sexually himself. Both situations have a specific effect on the status of any children she bears. When female slaves are married off, any children born from the marriage are slaves belonging to the mother's owner, though legal paternity is established for her husband. When a master takes his own female slave as a concubine, by contrast, any children she bears are free and legally the children of her owner, with the same status as any children born to him in a legal marriage to a free wife. The slave who bears her master's child becomes an umm walad (literally, mother of a child), gaining certain protections. Most importantly, she cannot be sold and she is automatically freed upon her master's death."
As for the Aztec, they had a system of slavery that also came with a bundle of rights, far different from the chattel slavery of the European variety.
Caribbean History.......2004-12-03
Although there may be complainants about Dr. Williams not addressing certain forms of slavery throughout history it has to be kept in mind that his thesis was about the hows and whys of African enslavement in the Caribbean. Williams firmly argues and details how today's culture of racism and capitalism was born.
This book is extremely well done and a great beginner for anyone interested in the topic of Caribbean history.
Book Description
Part vocational pep rally, part how-to book, What Makes the Great Great elaborates on the inspiring message bestselling author Dennis Kimbro put forth in his first book Think and Grow Rich--A Black Choice. In What Makes the Great Great, the author explores the strategies and thought processes of successful African-Americans. Through dozens of interviews and the inspirational stories of people like John H. Johnson, Publisher of Ebony magazine, Condoleeza Rice, Provost of Stanford University, and Ann Fudge, President of Maxwell House Coffee, Dr. Kimbro outlines the nine strategies that determine success.
According to Dr. Kimbro, being great depends on a commitment to making dreams come true: "All high achievers make choices, not excuses." He believes we all have the seeds of greatness in us, and his book gives readers the tools to discover and nurture those seeds, showing hem how to motivate themselves to master every aspect of their lives.
Customer Reviews:
Nothing Like It!.......2007-04-27
Mr. Kimbro has detailed the steps towards success in this book. The glass is half full in "What Makes the Great Great". Looking beyond ones circumstances and activating your subconsious mind to pursue and achieve your dreams is the foundation for what I got out of it. It makes sense, is easy to understand and has practical steps that work!
Not just another change your thoughts/change your life book!.......2007-04-26
I love books like this! This book is not only inspiring, but it gives the reader clear examples and instructions on how to achieve your own greatness.
When I first picked this up, I wasn't sure how this book would stand out among all the others I've read that are along the same lines as this. I've read numerous books by Napoleon Hill, Og Mandino, Dale Carnegie, Neville, etc. So, I was wondering if this was just another off-shoot of those, and I was wondering if my time might be better spent re-reading the classics that I mentioned above. I was pleasantly surprised when I started reading and discovered that not only is this book a reinforcement of the above mentioned favorites of mine, but the style is highly appealing to me. This is not just another 'change your thoughts, change your life' type book. This is not a book of quotes, but there are a plethora of really good statements/examples of acheivement and quotes throughout, that I believe can be extrememly beneficial. I love quotes that inspire, motivate and resonate with me. There are many, many really good things to write down and review often from this book.
I was impressed when I read the part about the author meeting with Clement Stone personally and how Mr. Kimbro accepted the project challenge even though Mr. stone decided against offering any financial inducement. -Because Mr. Stone felt it was important for Dennis to experience the very thing he was trying to convey to the audience. That made me realize that this man can truly write about this stuff. He didn't just get a bunch of books/materials together and come up with his own translation -he experienced the journey himself.
"Success in any area of life isn't something you do; rather it's something to see. Success is an understanding, not an activity." -from the book.
Great book. I hope you will read it, love it, and use it in your own life!
Great for anyone.......2007-01-21
Dr. Kimbro relates stories of Black Americans for this book, but the message holds true for everyone! Just look past color and recognize that the messages here will work for all. Dr. Kimbro uses stories to support his concepts and he does a nice job of it. I got it from the library, but enjoyed it so much and wanted to reference it that I bought it! Good writing, well layed out, good message. To simplify so that you can get the main points you might want to summarize and condense the "meat". The stories are great, but the main points can really help anyone be successful if they chose. Read it!
Waist of TIME.......2006-07-12
The book is pointless. Do not read it if you already have some sense of self worth.
Read this book - even if you are not African-American!!!.......2004-08-10
I picked up this book thinking that it would perhaps be a series of small bios of famous persons who had succeeded. To my delight, this book is so much more. I am not black, I am not even American, but I highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking to come to terms with their purpose and place in this world. Dr. Kimbro is a wonderful writer and has a way of helping you to look at your life that I have not come across before (and I have read Covey etc). Like other reviewers, I wish this book was on CD so I could listen to his words time and again and really integrate them into my life. As it is, my copy of his book is now covered in stickies, comments, and various scraps of paper with my own notes on. I can give no higher praise than to say this book has led me to my own life's true purpose and I am now actively on the path to a happy and energetic life. Thanks Dr. Kimbro!
Customer Reviews:
Living In Living Out.......2000-03-01
This book is a wonderful account of how African-American women made it at the turn of the century. I enjoyed reading how these women made a difference in the lives of the people and children in their families. This book showed me just how strong Black women are. It allowed me to see that they had the strength to go on and face any adversary that came into their lives. Any woman or person facing obstacles in their lives can pick up this book and know that they can makeit. That's what this book did for me. I know that there is nothing that I can't do. It's a book that I will one day want my now 10 year old daughter to rad and pass along to her daughter.
Book Description
With a well-earned reputation for tolerance of both prostitution and miscegenation, New Orleans became known as the Great Southern Babylon in antebellum times. Following the Civil War, a profound alteration in social and economic conditions gradually reshaped the city's sexual culture and erotic commerce. Historian Alecia Long traces sex in the Crescent City over fifty years, drawing from Louisiana Supreme Court case testimony to reveal intriguing tales of people both obscure and famous whose relationships and actions exemplify the era.
Long introduces a black woman and white man whose thirty-year romance endured without benefit of legal or social sanction; an immigrant entrepreneur who became the wealthy impresario of lascivious concert saloons; a reform activist who supported quarantining prostitution, until city leaders established vice district boundaries in his backyard; a young prostitute who prospered as a Storyville madame while leading a double life as a respectable member of society; and mixed-race women who used their legendary allure as "octoroons" to make their fortunes. In weaving together these individual experiences, the author uncovers a connection between the geographical segregation of prostitution and the rising tide of racial segregation. She also offers a compelling explanation of how New Orleans's lucrative sex trade drew tourists from the Bible Belt and beyond even as a nationwide trend toward the commercialization of sex emerged.
Alecia Long blows away the romanticized smoke and perfume surrounding Storyville to reveal in the reasons for its rise and fall a fascinating corner of southern history. The Great Southern Babylon illuminates a complex mosaic of race, gender, sexuality, social class, and commerce in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans.
Customer Reviews:
Review from the New Orleans Times-Picayune.......2004-07-20
In 1903, a guidebook promoting New Orleans’s Storyville red-light district provided a directory of elite prostitutes. Entitled the Storyville 400, the guide offered practical information for those in search of such services. Many of the guidebook’s readers may have also chuckled at the sly parody of the “First Four Hundred”--the famous roster of New Yorkers prominent enough to be invited to parties thrown by socialite Lina Astor. Astor’s ballroom, it was said, could only accommodate 400 people. A list of prostitutes that lampooned Fifth Avenue snobbery must have been a matter of some hilarity for the “sporting men” and tourists who frequented New Orleans bordellos. But while the guidebooks spoofed Americans’ turn of the century obsession with respectability, the men who frequented Storyville also willingly paid a premium to visit brothels that affected Victorian refinement.
In The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and Respectablity in New Orleans, 1865-1920, Alecia Long vividly recreates the tempestuous Storyville-era when increasingly conservative national values collided with New Orleans’s decadent culture. For Long, colorful and conflicted women like Mary Anne Deubler epitomized this period. A former prostitute, Deubler went on to become one of Storyville’s most successful madams. Her success was, in part, due to her ability to combine the trappings of high society with the lascivious entertainment of bordello culture. Her Basin Street brothel--the Chateau Lobrano d’Arlington—mimicked the elegance that typified Victorian domesticity. But while the oak paneling, heavily draped windows, and fine furniture might have resembled the drawing rooms of Garden District mansions, many “gentlemen of taste” preferred the services of Deubler’s “cultivated” girls to the respectable company of their wives. Long argues convincingly that madams like Deubler “sagely manipulated the idea of respectability that permeated American culture” and, by so doing, amassed impressive fortunes. Yet, even Deubler grew embarrassed by the source of her wealth and longed for entrance into polite society. In an effort to reinvent herself as a Victorian lady, she purchased a splendid residence on Esplanade Avenue, toured Europe, wore the latest fashions, and summered in Pass Christian and Covington.
Although Deubler may have craved respectability, Long argues aptly that unlike many other cities in the United States, New Orleans never fully embraced the Victorian ethos. While the city had prominent and outspoken reformers such as Philip Werlein who pressured officials to stamp out vice, lawmakers responded with conflicting or half-hearted measures. Officials did move against the concert saloons on Royal Street where bawdy burlesque and minstrel performers entertained working-class crowds. Those boisterous saloons were, after all, only a short distance from some of the city’s most respectable dining and shopping venues. And even politicians who frequented the saloons felt obligated to respond after notorious incidents such as bar owner Otto Schoenhausen’s conviction for drugging and robbing one of his own patrons.
In another effort to appease reformers, in 1897 councilman Sidney Story (for whom Storyville would be nicknamed) introduced his famous ordinance that created an officially sanctioned red-light district on the edge of the French Quarter. Because the ordinance banned prostitution in most of the city, Story could claim to be a reformer without shutting down the sex trade that drew thousands of visitors to New Orleans each year. Story’s ordinance, Long argues, made the city unique and notorious. Although other cities had de facto vice districts, New Orleans was alone in “the frank and direct way the city’s leaders chose to delineate its vice district through municipal ordinance.” In 1897, Long writes, “in an extremely direct and decidedly non-Protestant fashion, New Orleans city officials, acknowledging their belief that sins of the flesh were inevitable, looked Satan in the eye, cut a deal, and gave him his own address.”
For the next twenty years, men like Mayor Martin Behrman protected Storyville from those who railed against it, particularly evangelical reformers from the northern part of the state. Behrman viewed himself as a realist. “You can,” he said, “make prostitution illegal in Louisiana but you can’t make it unpopular.” To be sure, some prominent businessmen and local politicians hoped New Orleans would, instead, emulate “New South” cities such as Atlanta that emphasized manufacturing, banking, and commerce. But as long as Storyville flourished economically, others were happy to promote the city as a bastion of decadence and difference.
Intertwined with this struggle between sex and respectability were equally contentious matters of race that arose, Long contends, because some of New Orleans prostitutes were women of color. New Orleans had had a long history of tolerating relationships “across the color line.” The system of placąge that flourished during the antebellum era clearly set New Orleans apart from the rest of the South. And many men and women of different races fell in love, had children, and lived together out of wedlock. Although these relationships faced significant social and legal constraints, they remained prevalent throughout the nineteenth century. During Reconstruction, interracial marriage was even briefly made legal. As the forces of white supremacy gained ground after 1877, however, race relations grew far more rigid, even in the Crescent City.
For Long, it is no coincidence that the ordinance that created Storyville in 1897 came on the heels of the United States Supreme Court’s infamous 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that sanctioned legal segregation. Although Sidney Story’s ordinance did not prohibit white men from visiting black or mixed-race prostitutes, it did move those activities into what had been a predominately African-American neighborhood and out of the eye of respectable white society.
Some pragmatic Storyville madams, Long notes, managed to use these increasingly rigid racial mores to their advantage. Self-described “octaroons” like Willie Piazza and Lulu White marketed their brothels as exotic destinations where white men could find light-skinned mixed-race women who were refined but “skilled” in ways more prudish white women were not. Since romantic relationships “across the color line” were no longer as acceptable as they were in the antebellum era, commercialized interracial sex became highly profitable in New Orleans. By allowing men to violate a central taboo of the Jim Crow South, Long contends, Storyville brothels served as a “safety valve” where southerners came to “escape racial, religious, and behavioral strictures.”
Storyville’s heyday was short-lived. By 1909, Louisiana conservatives from Shreveport and other northern outposts, successfully urged the state legislature to target prostitution. New state laws banned musical instruments in saloons, prohibited blacks and whites from drinking together, and barred women from establishments that sold liquor and not food. To circumvent these laws, some brothels added tamale carts and other food concessions to their dance halls. But other restrictive measures soon followed and in 1917, as America mobilized to fight World War I, Storyville suffered a fatal blow. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, convinced that the district posed a threat to troops stationed nearby, ordered a reluctant Mayor Behrman to close the district down. Although some brothels survived Daniel’s assault, Storyville’s boom years were over. By the mid-1940s, the district had fallen on hard times and the city razed most of its buildings to make way for the Iberville Housing Project.
In The Great Southern Babylon, Alecia Long provides a dazzling account of the cultural forces that created and destroyed the infamous Storyville district. She also provides a skillful and thought-provoking analysis of the lasting impact the district has had on the city. She argues convincingly that Storyville helped New Orleans to resist the homogenization that most of the nation embraced. Story’s ordinance gave the city a unique “reputation for tolerating, even encouraging, indulgence of all varieties.” Although this reputation may have been in place long before the advent of Storyville, the creation of a legal authorized tenderloin district marked the moment when civic leaders began to exploit New Orleans’ decadent image “in order to profit from it and draw people to the city.”
Since its demise, Storyville has become part of New Orleans lore. The unpleasant and degrading aspects of prostitution have been filtered from collective memory and replaced by images of Jelly Roll Morton, the early days of Jazz, and smoke-filled nights nights in ornate bordellos populated by colorful characters. “More than a century after Storyville was established, and more than eighty years after it was abolished,” Long concludes, “the city’s reputation for sexual liberality, sensual tourism, and laissez-faire morality remains intact. It also remains indebted, at least in part, to the romanticized mythology that has developed about Storyville.”
Could Anyone Write a Boring Book on Sex in New Orleans?.......2004-06-17
Ms. Long could and did. With 38 pages of footnotes for a 232 page book, I should have known better than to read it.
To be fair, it's her PhD dissertation made longer and more detailed so as to appear more academically substantial.
Is there a place for this information? Yes, on the website of a university history department so researchers could search and access the material effectively for other academic studies.
This does answer one important question. Is the political fix alive and well in New Orleans? Yes, it's published by the Louisiana State University. For them to waste money on publishing this, it took enormous plitical clout and the author's last name is Long if that rings any bells.
Fortunately, not even this could ruin the city's reputation for excitement.
Storyville & New Orleans Sex Business Revealed........2004-05-07
Storyville has long captured the imagination of Americans. A vision of a wide open sex district in the heart of turn of the century New Orleans has inspired a great deal of fictional writing (some donning the mask of history) and the movie Pretty Baby. Alecia Long peels back the layers of this fascinating vice district and reveals a world far more interesting than Hollywood could ever imagine. Love across racial lines, upright citizens trying to control vice, and business minded women carving a role for themselves are all discussed. Long's texts moves smoothly and maintains the reader's interest--all the while grounded solidly in scholarship. An entertaining, informative, and enjoyable read!
Average customer rating:
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Madam C. J. Walker: Self-Made Millionaire (Great African Americans Series)
Pat McKissack , and
Fredrick McKissack
Manufacturer: Enslow Elementary
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- A Lost Paradise
- The Mayor's platform was "A porkchop in every fridge"
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Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson (Great Lakes Books)
Sunnie Wilson , and
John Cohassey
Manufacturer: Wayne State University Press
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Customer Reviews:
A Lost Paradise.......2004-01-05
Sunnie Wilson was like the John Dancy's and the Francis Kornegay's of the Detroit Urban League: High-yellow blacks who loathed the dark-complexioned blacks. If you don't believe me, read E. Franklin Frazier's Black bourgeois, or Victoria Wolcott's Remaking Respectability.
It was not my intention to linger on the issues regarding Wilson's conspicuous story, rather than to make the point that Wilson belonged to a particular elite social circle that was set apart from the common black folk of/in Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. Albeit not stated in my theses, it is my belief that one of the reasons that Black Bottom fell was because black elites abandoned the community in time of real need. Instead of coming together to forge a political strategy to battle Mayor Jeffries infamous Detroit Plan, Black elites (with the aid of a 1946 Supreme Court ruling) fled to the suburbs, and Idlewild.
Wilson's story is an important source in Black Bottom historiography because he forces us to rethink the hiring practices of Detroit Urban League, where Forrester B. Washington, and other black community leaders, believed that light-skinned women seeking employment - as opposed to the those of darker skin tone - were more attractive because they "were as a rule girls who have had better opportunities than the pure blacks who were mostly southern girls from the rural districts." This reductionist viewpoint allowed leaders like John Dancy to place light-skinned women employees in coveted positions in effort to improve the image of African American female workers in Detroit. In other words, the Detroit Urban League - composed mostly of color-conscious, "high-yellow" blacks - funded by wealthy whites, allowed themselves to become the filtering station for the white establishment to scrutinize and choose the type and kind of blacks they would allow to enter their workforce. And who would be better suited for such a job other than the black bourgeois, whose main goal and objective was to be loved and accepted by white folks. Now, one could argue that the Detroit Urban League had simply played the cards they were dealt (as Richard Thomas might would argue), or one could argue that the Detroit Urban League could have done more to challenge the racist, paternalistic, and patriarchal actions of the white establishment, and pushed for a more humanistic approach to solving the problems of employment affronted the black southern migrant - both dark and light-complected.
Wilson's book forces us to look at these problematic issues that would, in my opinion, ultimately cause the fall of a great and unprecedented example of perhaps the most impressive black community the world would ever know. Wilson was part of an elite circle of (high-yellow) black folk that fleeced the black community in the same way that Jews had historical done. And when Black Bottom and Paradise Valley began to see hard times, rather than bond together their resources, influence, political power and wealth, the rich and elite black folk (including Wilson) packed their bags and fled the scene. Wilson would like to make us believe that it was black crime ("Soon I made up my mind that I could no longer do business in a section full of dope peddlers and petty criminals") that pushed him away from his responsibilities toward the black community revitalization movement, but it was probably the opportunity to retain his elite ties and lifestyle that ole Sunnie - a high-yellow elitist - saw the benefit in heading up north to forge together a community of "well-to-do black cottage owners and vacationers." Wilson reveled in the joy and prestige of rubbing elbows with the black rich and famous, who would become regular attendants of Idlewild: Dr. W. E. B. Dubois, Madame C. J. Walker, Charles Waddell Chestnutt, and Dr. Daniel Hale Williams who originally owned the island from 1915 to 1916 before giving it to his sister, Virgil (whom Wilson, consistently obsessed with color, describes as "a very light-compected woman..."). As I read Wilson's story, I became somewhat convinced that part of the reason that Black Bottom and Paradise Valley "became a victim of `slum clearance,' or what became known as urban renewal," was because the black community's most vital resources -black wealthy elites - abandoned it. Rather than see the benefit of fighting to restore, rebuild, and revitalize the fledgling black economy (fledgling since the riots) the black economic power-base (the Barthwells', the Gordys', The Roxboroughs' , the Wilsons' ) closed ranks and hit the dirt running. And the "big-money interests like Mr. Webster and the J. L. Hudson family bought up parcels of land," while, "to make way for the I-75 freeway, the city decimated Black Bottom and Paradise Valley."
Today, a comfortably retired Wilson unapologetically recants his act of treason: "I thought the takeover was wrong, but sometimes you can't fight `progress,' especially when you are poor and your adversary is armed with the power of millions of dollars." But Wilson, like his friends and associates, were wealthy, or at least, collectively wealthy, which meant power. Rather than fight, they ran to the suburbs and Idlewild, while the less affluent blacks in Black Bottom watched their lives crumbled beneath the mammoth city-owned bulldozers.
The Mayor's platform was "A porkchop in every fridge".......2001-11-04
and Sunnie Wilson lived up to that motto by giving back generously to the black community. His motto might also have been "a bed and good meal for every musician" because he owned and operated the Mark Twain Hotel expressly for that purpose. BB King, Dizzy Gillespie,Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and many more stayed there. Sunnie also ran several show bars in Detroit's "northern" Paradise Valley. The book contains hundreds of stories having to do with musicians whose names are very common today. He was also very influencial in the political climate of the 1930 and 1940s in Detroit, and provides much insite into those times. Some of his greatest successes occured in the rich entertainment district that centered around John R, where today the Detroit Medical Center sits. To understand the history, you have to read the book, almost nothing remains of what was sometimes called the "near eastside ghetto".
A great read. It reads like a novel, but leaves you with hard facts that easily pop up in conversation, and give perspective into the future.
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Black Success Stories Volume 1
Zhana
Manufacturer: Zhana Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
African-American & Black
| Ethnic & National
| Biographies & Memoirs
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Business
| Professionals & Academics
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Multicultural
| Contemporary Methods
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General
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African-American Studies
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ASIN: 0952555832 |
Book Description
This book celebrates the successes and achievements of African Caribbean people in UK society who are at the top of their fields in · politics · education · business and enterprise and · health. What steps have successful African Caribbean people taken in order to achieve their goals? What problems and difficulties did they face, and how did they overcome them? What mistakes did they make along the way? What kind of future are we building for our young people? Some of those interviewed here include · business guru René Carayol MBE · Diane Abbott MP · journalist and broadcaster Henry Bonsu and many more. With a foreword by Lord Herman Ouseley. Contained within these pages are guidelines and signposts to achievement which should be read by every African Caribbean young person, parent and educator.
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Competition and Coercion: Blacks in the American economy 1865-1914 (Hoover Institution Publication, P163.)
Robert Higgs
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Labor & Industrial Relations
| Economics
| Business & Investing
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General
| Business & Investing
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United States
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| 19th Century
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General
| England
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ASIN: 0521211204 |
Average customer rating:
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Great African Americans in Business (Outstanding African Americans)
Pat Rediger
Manufacturer: Crabtree Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Ethnic & National
| Biographies & Memoirs
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Business
| Professionals & Academics
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General
| Explore the World
| People & Places
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General
| Science, Nature & How It Works
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| Ages 9-12
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Case Studies
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ASIN: 0865058032 |
Book Description
Up-to-date profiles on;
Rose Morgan, Beautician, Business Executive
Naomi Sims, Business Woman
Berry Gordy, Jr. , Recording Industry Executive
John H. Johnson, Publisher
Madam C. J. Walker, Entrepreneur
Oprah Winfrey, Broadcast Executive,Talk Show Host
PLUS 6 additional 2-page biographies
Books:
- Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present
- Colored People: A Memoir
- Coming of Age in Mississippi
- Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s: The Killer Inside Me / The Talented Mr. Ripley / Pick-up / Down There / The Real Cool Killers (Library of America)
- Days of Grace
- Depression: A Stubborn Darkness--Light for the Path (VantagePoint Books)
- Douglas A-1 Skyraider: A Photo Chronicle
- Dying While Black
- Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It
- Fear No Evil: A Novel
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Harry S. Truman: His Life and Times
- Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grow
- Ravishing of Lol Stein
- Picture Play Quilts
- Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
- The God Instinct
- The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles: From World War I to the Present Day
- Nature and the Human Spirit: Toward an Expanded Land Management Ethic
- Profiles of Power and Success: Fourteen Geniuses Who Broke the Rules
- Business Data Atlas with Map
From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean 1492-1969
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study
The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern 1492-1800
