Part 1: Black Fortunes: The Story of Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires

 Many of us have heard of famous places such as "Black Wall Street" in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We've heard of Beale Street in Memphis Tennessee. Many of us remember studying about John Brown and his famous raid on Harper's Ferry. Many of us watched Self Made on Netflix earlier this year as it chronicled the rise of Sarah Breedlove or as she's known famously Madam C. J. Walker. The movie Self Made would also show Madam C. J. Walker's rather contentious relationship with fictional rival Addie Munroe who was supposed to portray the real life Annie Turnbo Malone. 

Last summer I had the pleasure of reading, Black Fortunes: The Story of Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires by Shomari Wills. I think we often hear the story of newly freed African Americans and the struggles they went through as they began trying to navigate a world that honestly wasn't created for them and one in which they still had very few rights. In his book, Shomari Wills, tells a different narrative of Africans Americans making their way in the world. I have so much respect for these individuals and what they managed to accomplish in their lifetimes. 

In this post I plan to only highlight a few of these individuals accomplishments in the hopes that you all go and grab this read from Amazon, Audible, or Kindle to learn more about how they climbed to such great heights. 

Mary Ellen Pleasant would be known as the "Mother of Civil Rights". She was a woman of mixed race born during slavery, but grew up in Nantucket, Massachusetts where she would eventually become free. She learned from the Whites around her about business and often times passed as a White woman which allowed her many freedoms in the days before the Civil War. One of her husbands was a Cuban who appeared as White. He owned a plantation where he bought enslaved Blacks to free them. It was here that Mary Ellen Pleasant began her work as an abolitionists working on the Underground Railroad. She would help these formerly enslaved Blacks where she resided for awhile. After her husband died leaving her a small fortune she moved to California where many were getting rich off of the Gold Rush. She moved to California and opened up a boarding house and began investing in almost anything she could quickly growing her fortune. This fortune she put into abolitionist movements. One abolitionist that she was extremely supportive of was the radical John Brown. She gave $30,000 to help with his failed raid at Harper's Ferry where he planned to steal weapons to stage an armed slave rebellion. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of Mary Ellen Pleasant she'd do some desegregating out in California among many other things. 

Robert Reed Church in my opinion was a real bad ass. Born a slaved of mixed race his White father

would show him favor and teach him the steamboat business. When the steamboat he was working on was captured by the Union during the Civil War he jumped ship and swam to Memphis. He would eventually open a bar/saloon. He would be shot and attacked by Whites while running his bar and left for dead a few times. This didn't stop him from running his business. He would become very wealthy and extremely influential in both White and Black circles. During the Yellow Fever Pandemic of 1878 when thousands either died or fled the city Church invested in property in that had been abandoned in what is today known as Beale Street. During his lifetime Beale Street would gain its reputation as being the Red Light District of Memphis. Church didn't care he was making money. He'd open up the first Black owned bank in Memphis. Just like Pleasant, Church also made sure that his wealth went to helping the poor of Memphis. He was one of my favorite individuals to read about. 

I believe I'll leave this post here. Be on the lookout for my post on the four other millionaires in the book, Black Fortunes. 

While I suggest you read the book I'm including some stuff you might want to checkout to learn more about these two individuals. Also please don't forget to subscribe and follow me on Instagram: @mrdslibrary and Facebook: Mr. Dunnam's Library

Mary Ellen Pleasant: 

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/06/02/a-girl-full-of-smartness/

Mary Ellen Pleasant - Drunk History

Robert Reed Church: 

http://historic-memphis.com/biographies/robert-church/robert-church.html