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Historical Context Communities of most old black Money.
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago
Cleveland
Detroit
Greensboro Nc
Houston
Los Angeles
Memphis
New York
New Orleans
Oakland
Orlando Fl
Philadelphia
1. Prince George's County, MD (namely Upper Marlboro, Bowie, Mitchellville, Clinton, Brandywine)
2. Washington D.C.
3. Norfolk/Tidewater/Hampton Roads, VA
4. Baltimore, MD
5. Philadelphia
6. Detroit/ Southfield
7. Long Island NYC suburbs
8. New Orleans
9. Atlanta (#1 if this is "new money")
10. I-40 corridor North Carolina
11. Chicago Southside
I would add some parts of Westchester County in the NYC area, parts of Cheltenham and Abington in the Philadelphia suburbs, some NE NJ communities in the NYC area, select parts of the eastern suburbs of Cleveland and perhaps outer North City areas/nearby suburban areas of St. Louis.
Depends on what is constituted as old money for black people in terms of timeline. I would set the criteria for a family that had money at least before 1960. Also, they are defined as the black families that didn't cumulate wealth through entertainment venues.
Going by the Lawrence Otis Graham's(RIP), Our Kind of People, old money black families were found in relatively progressive cities such as DC, Atlanta, Philadelphia, NYC, Detroit, and Chicago. The author reference some family names ( Pincheback, Rucker, Purvis, Delany, Williams, etc.) that made their establishments in those cities as well. The black elite avoided sprouting roots in impoverished rural sections of southern states like South Carolina, Virginia, Virginia, Georgia, and Mississippi. In the south, they built their businesses in the cities of Washington, Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, and Charleston. Charleston goes way back, as by 1860 there were already some 3,200 freed blacks( up from 1,000 in 1800 out of 40,000 population in general), who served as a nucleus for the black upper class to emerge. It's worth noting that the author specifically referenced children of the black elite belonging to Jack and Jill and summered in Sag Harbor, Oak Bluff's, or Martha's Vineyard- all places along the eastern coastline. With that in mind, I assume that the old money is most clustered in cities along that wide eastern coast.
Last edited by Chicagoland60426; 02-05-2022 at 02:07 PM..
Brookline is home to many esteemed academics, published authors with busy book-promotion tours, African-Americans, and octogenarians.
Adelaide Cromwell may be the only Brookline resident who is all of the above. And as if to show that it's all easier than one thinks, the 87-year-old has just published another book on the accomplishments of her forebears.
The book, "Unveiled Voices, Unvarnished Memories," is the history of the Cromwell family from 1692 to 1972. Her grandfather was a lawyer and newspaper publisher, a descendant of slaves who purchased their own freedom.
"My father was one of many well-educated people" in the black community of Washington, D.C., she said, noting he was a Phi Beta Kappa member at Dartmouth College (class of 1906). He was Washington's first black practicing certified public accountant, she said, and, because he couldn't get promoted in a segregated society, eventually became his own boss.
Other Cromwell relatives include cousin Edward Brooke, who was the first black to be elected to the US Senate by popular vote when Massachusetts sent him to Washington in 1966. Like Adelaide, he was born in 1919 and has a new book out: "Bridging the Divide: My Life."
And then there's her aunt, Otelia Cromwell, the first black graduate (class of 1900) of Smith College in Northampton. Otelia completed a doctorate in history at Yale.
For her doctoral dissertation at Radcliffe in 1952, she wrote on the black elite of Boston, which she published in 1994 as "The Other Brahmins." On that subject, Cromwell has found many underreported facets to document, such as the black community on Martha's Vineyard, where she maintains a second home, and Boston Latin's African-American graduates.
From the Revolutionary War onward, Boston boasted a small number of educated and accomplished black residents. Because of social and legal restrictions, many of these community leaders didn't attain wealth or social prominence outside the black community, said Cromwell. However, they opened summer homes in Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard, and established the first schools for blacks, and their organizations were covered by William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator.
These families produced the state's first black teachers, doctors, and lawyers. After forming and fighting in one of the all-black regiments in the Civil War, many became Boston leaders, served in government posts, and established exclusive clubs.
According to historian Daniel M. Scott III, "Boston played a major role in black cultural expression before, during, and after" the Harlem Renaissance.[17]
In theater, Ralf Coleman's Negro Repertory Theater earned him the unofficial title of "Dean of Boston Black Theater". In dance, Stanley E. Brown, Mildred Davenport, and Jimmy Slyde earned national acclaim. In the visual arts, Allan Crite was one of the most influential painters in Boston.[17]
In literature, the Colored American, one of the first magazines aimed at African Americans, was originally published in Boston before moving to New York in 1904; Cambridge-born Pauline Hopkins wrote for the magazine and was its editor from 1902 to 1904. William Stanley Braithwaite's (I know his descendants, they live in rowhomes in Roxbury) annual Anthology of Magazine Verse, which ran from 1913 to 1929, influenced American taste in poetry
In 1900, Booker T. Washington founded the National Negro Business League in Boston. Its mission was "to bring the colored people who are engaged in business together for consultation, and to secure information and inspiration from each other". In 1910, David E. Crawford opened the Eureka Co-Operative Bank in Boston; it was referred to as "the only bank in the East owned and operated by 'Colored People'."[21]
In addition to all this, the first black published Poet- Phyllis Wheatley
-The first black woman to become a physician- Rebbeca Lee Crumpler
-Prince Hall
-the entire "Hayden" family
-And still home to the nation's largest black-owned bank, One United Bank. Headquartered in Roxbury, MA.
-Dorothy West was born and raised there-of the Harlem Renaissance.
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