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    Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires
    Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires
    Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires
    Audiobook6 hours

    Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires

    Written by Shomari Wills

    Narrated by Ron Butler

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The astonishing untold history of America’s first black millionaires—former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century, from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring Twenties—self-made entrepreneurs whose unknown success mirrored that of American business heroes such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison.

    While Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Michael Jordan, and Will Smith are among the estimated 35,000 black millionaires in the nation today, these famous celebrities were not the first blacks to reach the storied one percent. Between the years of 1830 and 1927, as the last generation of blacks born into slavery was reaching maturity, a small group of smart, tenacious, and daring men and women broke new ground to attain the highest levels of financial success.

    Black Fortunes is an intriguing look at these remarkable individuals, including Napoleon Bonaparte Drew—author Shomari Wills’ great-great-great-grandfather—the first black man in Powhatan County (contemporary Richmond) to own property in post-Civil War Virginia. His achievements were matched by five other unknown black entrepreneurs including:

    • Mary Ellen Pleasant, who used her Gold Rush wealth to further the cause of abolitionist John Brown;
    • Robert Reed Church, who became the largest landowner in Tennessee;
    • Hannah Elias, the mistress of a New York City millionaire, who used the land her lover gave her to build an empire in Harlem;
    • Orphan and self-taught chemist Annie Turnbo-Malone, who developed the first national brand of hair care products;
    • Madam C. J Walker, Turnbo-Malone’s employee who would earn the nickname America’s ""first female black millionaire;""
    • Mississippi school teacher O. W. Gurley, who developed a piece of Tulsa, Oklahoma, into a ""town"" for wealthy black professionals and craftsmen"" that would become known as ""the Black Wall Street.""

    A fresh, little-known chapter in the nation’s story—A blend of Hidden Figures, Titan, and The Tycoons—Black Fortunes illuminates the birth of the black business titan and the emergence of the black marketplace in America as never before.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJan 30, 2018
    ISBN9780062797551
    Author

    Shomari Wills

    Shomari Wills is a journalist. He has worked for CNN and Good Morning America, and has contributed to New York Carib News and Columbia Journalism Review. He received an undergraduate degree from Morehouse College and a graduate degree from Columbia University, where he was named a Lynton Book Writing Fellow. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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    Reviews for Black Fortunes

    4.5/5

    123 ratings18 reviews

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    • 5/5
      An audio empirically-based journey about black wealth achieved by intelligence, guile and many acts of bravery.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Absolutely amazing book. If you’ve ever wondered about how black Wall Street was started or the origins of the Harlem Renaissance and the people involved, it’s all here. The writer did a wonderful job researching and gives us a detailed account of the lives of these very inspirational people of color who endured incredible odds to pave the way for black wealth today. Excellent read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This was a great book! The narrator was awesome. The history revealed here is amazing. I enjoyed this!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This book had so many facts that are not included in most history courses taken in high school. The laws that were implemented during this book were designed to thwart by cessation of successful black entrepreneurship and an attempt to maintaining slavery at all cost; even to the re-enslavement of free individuals.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is an eye-opening book that provokes serious reflection on and thought about the state of Black America’s economic state in today’s world. This is a must-read for students of African American history.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      A great and revealing book on the resolve and ingenuity of an enslaved people to fight against all odds to become successful. I would definitely recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      Great book! Super informative and inspirational. I didn’t even know about any of these people. I don’t even have the dangers they faced, and yet I haven’t even accomplished 10% of what they did! It really makes me want to work harder because look at the way they have paved.
    • 5/5
      Incredible read. The stories are so riveting and inspiring. Highly recommend!
    • 5/5
      This is a fantastic book which allows you to appreciate your financial endowment and motivate yourself
    • 5/5
      Excellent audio. This book invoked feelings of empowerment, pride, awe, inspiration,anger and hope. And still we rise and we will continue to do the same. This is a must-read for all black people as some of these names a lot of us don't even know.
    • 5/5
      So so good! Amazing to learn about Black history that you'd never learn in school!
    • 5/5
      The stories of these first millionaires, kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.
      I’m ashamed to admit that I only knew of Madame Cj Walker & had never heard of the others.
      After reading this book, I’m excited because I feel like a part of the puzzle to a much bigger picture has been found, but I’m also upset that these stories are not as widely acknowledged & publicized as the stories of their white counterparts from that era are, which I’m all too familiar with.

      Hats off to Shomari for his impeccable research, I thoroughly enjoyed this book & look forward to his next work.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It often made me laugh out loud. Other times it broke my heart and moved me almost to tears. But above all, through its entirety, it inspired me.
    • 5/5
      Great to have knowledge on our history ? ? ?
    • 5/5
      Very educational and engaging. I'd read again to make sure I understood everything.
    • 5/5
      Amazing book on the history of black wealth and adversity!
    • 5/5
      An amazing and necessary piece of literature that everyone should read because this is the true story of America. The grit and determination these men and women showed with all the adversity they had to overcome is the blueprint for what we can achieve today. I wish I would have known this information when I was a child.
    • 5/5
      Millionaires today are no big deal. Half of Congress is millionaires. Not impressed. But the first six black American millionaires is a terrific story. These unlikely individuals started off with huge disadvantages, from race to skin color to illiteracy to being slaves or the children of slaves. That they rose to wealth in such a hostile environment – civil war, reconstruction, Jim Crow – makes them all the more impressive. And half of them were women.Unlike todays’ millionaires who can set out to make a fortune and just do it, the first six black millionaires often backed into it. Every story is different, every fortune is different. They leveraged the mobility of America, taking advantage of the California gold rush or the Oklahoma land giveaway. They became lenders to help build local businesses that helped them rent their buildings, or in one case, became the kept woman of a white multimillionaire. Their million in assets is worth tens of millions by today’s standards, making it all the more impressive.Shomari Wills has to be a fine storyteller to fill in the gaps in these largely unrecorded lives, and he is. They come alive in his pages and their stories move quickly. Rather than profile each one alone, his book is chronological. The chapters run from the 1800s to the 1950s. The characters show up in different decades as we pick up their stories again. There is little or no interaction among the players. They were too busy living their own lives to even know about each other, unlike todays’ crop, which constantly gather and socialize.And none of them made their fortune in office.My favorite is Mary Ellen Pleasant, who took off for California to track down her man, and ended up with a fortune in real estate, securities and a prominent place in secretly funding John Brown and the Abolitionists. She totally dedicated her fortune to the cause. She was a class act.There is a shelf of these books now. They tend to make far more interesting biographies for me than the run of the mill. There’s Prince of Darkness – the story of Jeremiah Hamilton, a Wall St. finagler, who shows up in Black Fortunes too, Washington’s Mulatto Man and most recently Black Tudors, all of which I have reviewed and loved. Black Fortunes is yet another, very different and fascinating collection to add to the shelf.David Wineberg