2022 PROSE Awards Category Winner - Biography & Autobiography
Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards - 2021 BRONZE Winner for Biography
The fascinating biography of Eunice Hunton Carter, a social justice and civil rights trailblazer and the only woman prosecutor on the Luciano trial
Eunice Hunton Carter rose to public prominence in 1936 as both the only woman and the only person of color on Thomas Dewey’s famous gangbuster team that prosecuted mobster Lucky Luciano. But her life before and after the trial remains relatively unknown. In this definitive biography on this trailblazing social justice activist, authors Marilyn S. Greenwald and Yun Li tell the story of this unknown but critical pioneer in the struggle for racial and gender equality in the twentieth century.
Carter worked harder than most men because of her race and gender, and Greenwald and Li reflect on her lifelong commitment to her adopted home of Harlem, where she was viewed as a role model, arts patron, community organizer, and, later, as a legal advisor to the United Nations, the National Council of Negro Women, and several other national and global organizations.
Carter was both a witness to and a participant in many pivotal events of the early and mid– twentieth century, including the Harlem riot of 1935 and the social scene during the Harlem Renaissance.
Using transcripts, letters, and other primary and secondary sources from several archives in the United States and Canada, the authors paint a colorful portrait of how Eunice continued the legacy of the Carter family, which valued education, perseverance, and hard work: a grandfather who was a slave who bought his freedom and became a successful businessman in a small colony of former slaves in Ontario, Canada; a father who nearly single-handedly integrated the nation’s YMCAs in the Jim Crow South; and a mother who provided aid to Black soldiers in France during World War I and who became a leader in several global and domestic racial equality causes.
Carter’s inspirational multi-decade career working in an environment of bias, segregation, and patriarchy in Depression-era America helped pave the way for those who came after her.
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Introduction | 1
1. Heirs to the Struggle | 7
2. Free But Not Equal | 29
3. One Vision in Her Eye, One Cry in Her Soul | 49
4. The Business of Reaching New Heights | 67
5. From Squash Racquet to Racket Squasher | 80
6. “I Must Save My Sister” | 97
7. Getting Lucky: The People v. Charles Luciano | 112
8. “Making History for the Race” | 129
9. “A Prelude to Greater Tasks” | 143
10. The Aftermath | 161
Acknowledgments | 169
Notes | 171
Bibliography | 191
Index | 195
Photographs follow page 86
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In Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice, Greenwald and Li do the immense, important work of balancing the American narrative. In this riveting examination of Carter’s life, readers are introduced to an unsung heroine of modern American history. Beginning with her family roots steeped in the struggle for black equality and moving to Carter’s groundbreaking contributions to the infamous mob trial of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the authors elevate Eunice Hunton Carter to her rightful place in the American story. We know the names of Ida B. Wells, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Shirley Chisholm, and so many other freedom fighters. Now, thanks to Greenwald and Li, we can add Eunice Hunton Carter to that illustrious number.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780823293735
Publisert
2021-04-06
Utgiver
Vendor
Fordham University Press
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
01, G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Biographical note
Marilyn Greenwald (Author)Marilyn Greenwald is a professor emerita in the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. Her teaching and research interests include biography writing, news reporting, and reviewing the arts. She is the author of Pauline Frederick Reporting: A Pioneering Broadcaster Covers the Cold War (Potomac, 2015) and A Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism, and the Career of Charlotte Curtis (Ohio University Press, 1999), which was a notable book of the New York Times.
Yun Li (Author)
Yun Li is a reporter at CNBC covering the US financial markets. Her work has appeared in Reuters, Bloomberg News, and other outlets. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.