Separate Accounts

From the #1 bestselling author of Hidden Figures, another untold, overlooked account of black perseverance and success: this is the story of the American Dream and the power brokers who built black Baltimore. In midcentury Baltimore, a bustling city of strivers and immigrants, there are two households alike in power and vision. One family, the Murphys, is the epitome of respectability, the owners of an Afro-American newspaper and reigning monarchy of black society in the city. The other is on the wrong side of the law, their upbringing threadbare and ambitions unrealized until one of the children, Willie Adams, parlays every ounce of intelligence and tenacity he has into a numbers-running empire. At a time when white banks refuse to extend credit, Willie slowly becomes black Baltimore’s last resort, reinvesting his profits into businesses small and large. Then he becomes a vital part of white Baltimore’s economic success too.

This narrative, which sweeps from the 1930s to the 1970s, is a rags-to-riches story and a thrilling tour of the interconnected black bourgeoisie and black underworld. It’s the tale of business empires on the rise and of two families looking to challenge inequality through economic power. It’s a spiritual prequel to the television series The Wire, and Baltimore’s own version of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City. It pays huge testament to the black women making change in this era, from Willie Adams’ wife Victorine Quille who was the tactician behind his success and a star in her own right, forming the first political organisation for black women in Maryland and becoming the first woman elected onto Baltimore’s city council, to Lillie Mae Jackson who was known as the mother of civil rights and grew Baltimore’s chapter of the NAACP into the largest in the country.

And how did this booming city take a downturn, now known for its never-ending hard times, its homicide, police corruption, urban blight and streets of abandoned buildings? Baltimore is a microcosm of the American Dream. Even as we lament what the modern city might have been, the legacy of the Murphys and the Adamses give hope for what Baltimore could become again.