Black Gotham

February 15, 2011

Armed only with the name of her great-grandfather, Peterson (English, Univ. of Maryland, College Park; Doers of the Word: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North [1830-1880]) entered the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem with the hope of documenting her family's history. She was lucky. While examining an old manuscript collection, she happened upon two pages, evidently once part of a scrapbook. On one of these pages was a detailed newspaper obituary of Philip Augustus White, her great-grandfather. The obituary contained names of friends, associates, and organizations, giving Peterson the ammunition to launch a detailed study of her family and of black life in 19th-century New York City. Peterson's exhaustive research, fueled by her passion to discover her family roots, has produced a detailed and fascinating glimpse of life for the elite members of the African American community in the nation's largest city during the 1800s. VERDICT Peterson has produced a monumental account that is not well known to most Americans. Scholars, African Americans, New Yorkers, and history buffs will all find the book worthwhile.--Robert Bruce Slater, Stroudsburg, PA

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2011
Tracking down bits of information about a white Haitian in her familys history, Peterson stumbled onto a trove of historical information on black life in nineteenth-century New York. Peterson relates the history of her family and, through them, the broader context of life for African Americans then, defying assumptions about the history of slavery and freemen in New York. Theirs was a vibrant life before Harlem became synonymous with black New Yorkers, a life of achievement in business, politics, and the professions. Peterson focuses on her great-grandfather, pharmacist Philip White, and great-great-grandfather, Peter Guignon, a friend of prominent black leaders, including Alexander Crummell, Henry Highland Garnet, and George Allen. Each was part of a highly educated and activist elite that survived the Draft Riots of 1863 and the destruction of the Colored Orphan Asylum, among other incidents of racial strife. More than a family memoir, this is a chronicle of historic research to unveil a New York history of African Americans that challenges assumptions that a black elite did not exist before the twentieth century.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)