The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era
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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.
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Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. (2017). The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. 2017. The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era. HarperCollins, 2017.
MLA Citation (style guide)Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era. HarperCollins, 2017.
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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.
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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.
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"This work reads like a sweeping epic. The level of detail and research sheds light on a period that is mostly forgotten, revealing much-needed insight into African Americans' role and response in the shaping of American culture and politics... Essential." — Library Journal
"Historian Elizabeth Dowling Taylor brings insight to the rise and fall of America's first educated black people." — Time magazine
"Taylor's book could not be more timely." — Chicago Tribune
"A detailed (and, at times, moving) biography... Murray's life underscores the fragility of the black elite." — Minneapolis Star Tribune
"The Original Black Elite is a compelling biography of Daniel Murray and the group the writer-scholar W.E.B. DuBois called 'The Talented Tenth.' In this work, Elizabeth Dowling Taylor deftly demonstrates how the struggle for racial equality has always been complicated by the thorny issue of class." — Patricia Bell-Scott, author of The Firebrand and the First Lady, which was longlisted for the National Book Award.
"Elizabeth Dowling Taylor's riveting and timely story of black politicos and professionals—their joys and passions—blazing a trail of equity and excellence in the nation's capital, reminds us all too prophetically how fragile racial progress has been in American history. In this new post-Obama era, The Original Black Elite is a cautionary tale that this "forgotten era" of the first black elite in the highest corridors of power and influence a century ago is not just about the passing of time and the loss of memory. It is about the need to vigilantly learn from the past, never forgetting black progress has always been met with resistance and erasure." — Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness
"Brilliantly researched...Taylor knows how to weave an emotional story of how race and class have long played a role in determining who succeeds and who fails." — New York Times Book Review
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January 1, 2017
A lively work chronicling the growth of the educated African-American movers and shakers in Washington, D.C., on the brink of renewed Jim Crow laws.A longtime employee of the Library of Congress who wrote a significant bibliography of African-American literature, Daniel Murray (1851-1925), born to freedmen in Baltimore, ushered in a new class of educated black people advocating for reform in the nation's capital. In this thorough work of research, Taylor (A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons, 2012) focuses on Murray and his family as participants in the wave of hopeful race relations after the Civil War; ultimately, they had to come to grips with setbacks by the turn of the century. Murray and his family, mostly illiterate, were part of the "firsts" who moved to D.C. after the war. The young Murray, following his older brother, worked as a waiter in restaurants on the ground floor of the Capitol. Having been educated in Christian schools, he got a job under Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Rand Spofford as a personal assistant and eventually head of periodicals. Light-skinned, bright, and ambitious, Murray dabbled lucratively in real estate and was a model citizen chosen for President William McKinley's inauguration committee; he married a woman of illustrious abolitionist background from Oberlin, Ohio, Anna Evans, and together they formed a "power couple" in black activist Washington, joining many reform causes--e.g., Anna's devotion to creating kindergartens for African-American children. The author chronicles how two different intellectuals--Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois--approached African-American concerns at the time and how one of the first black political groups was Murray's National Afro-American Council, which eventually morphed into today's NAACP. Murray's special assignment research for the American Negro Exhibit at the Paris Exposition in 1900 would lead to his lifelong work culling African-American bibliography--the beginning of today's black studies. As Taylor demonstrates, Murray was a pioneer and patriot. Important research on an overlooked but significant figure.COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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January 1, 2017
This new history from New York Times best-selling author Taylor follows the life of Daniel Murray, an exemplary member of postbellum Washington, DC, and America's wealthy and well-educated black elite.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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February 1, 2017
Taylor (A Slave in the White House) sets out to explore the life and times of one of the first African American librarians at the Library of Congress, but ultimately produces a broad-ranging retrospective on the highs and lows of America's "black elite" during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to a meticulous history on the accomplishments of librarian Daniel Murray (1851-1925) and his family (from a bibliography on the works of African Americans to the development of kindergartens for the children of working-class mothers), the author covers the role of African American aristocrats in politics, policy, and civil rights during Reconstruction and the subsequent Jim Crow era. Moreover, the narrative provides a veritable who's who of black elite society, tracing events and accounts that are rarely included in history text. This work reads like a sweeping epic. The level of detail and research sheds light on a period that is mostly forgotten, revealing much-needed insight into African Americans' role and response in the shaping of American culture and politics. VERDICT Essential for advanced readers interested in complete accounts of black history and the shaping of modern American society.--Gricel Dominguez, Florida International Univ. Lib.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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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.
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