The Black Calhouns: From Civil War to Civil Rights with One African American Family
Gail Lumet Buckley, 2016
Grove/Atlantic
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802124548
Summary
In The Black Calhouns, Gail Lumet Buckley—daughter of actress Lena Horne—delves deep into her family history, detailing the experiences of an extraordinary African-American family from Civil War to Civil Rights.
Beginning with her great-great grandfather Moses Calhoun, a house slave who used the rare advantage of his education to become a successful businessman in post-war Atlanta, Buckley follows her family’s two branches: one that stayed in the South, and the other that settled in Brooklyn.
Through the lens of her relatives’ momentous lives, Buckley examines major events throughout American history. From Atlanta during Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, and then from World War II to the Civil Rights Movement, this ambitious, brilliant family witnessed and participated in the most crucial events of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Combining personal and national history, The Black Calhouns is a unique and vibrant portrait of six generations during dynamic times of struggle and triumph. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 21, 1937
• Where—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Radcliff College (now Columbia University)
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Gail Lumet Buckley is an American writer and the author of three books—The Hornes: An American Family (1986); Blacks in Uniform: From Bunker Hill to Desert Storm (2001); and The Black Calhouns: From Civil War to Civil Rights with One African American Family (2016).
Buckley was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Louis Jones, a publisher, and Lena Horne, the famed singer and Hollywood's first black movie star. As Horne's career took off, she left Gail and Gail's younger brother "Little Teddy" behind in Pittsburgh to pursue work in New York. The marriage ultimately failed, and Teddy remained in Pittsburgh at his father's insistence; Gail, however, went with her mother. The two traveled between New York and California, eventually settling in California where Gail attended an all white school. She was classmates with Natalie Wood and the children of various Hollywood luminaries.
When her mother remarried Lennie Hayton, a white composer and conductor, the family moved back to New York where interracial marriage was legal. Gail was thrust into a glittering society of Hollywood celebrities, luxury ocean liners, posh European hotels, and exclusive watering holes. She received a superior education from a private Quaker school in upstate New York and headed off to Harvard.
Yet despite this privileged existence, Gail and her parents were not immune to racism. As she wrote in The Hornes: "We actually left home because of race and politics.” And the Quaker school she attended was chosen because few other private American boarding schools accepted black students.
After graduating from Harvard in 1959, Gail worked as a journalist, including stints at Marie-Claire in Paris and Life magazine. It was at Life that she met her first husband, Sidney Lumet, a well known TV and movie director. They married in 1963, had two children, and split their time between New York and London in support of Sydney's career. The marriage ended in 1978. Five years later, Gail married her second husband, Kevin Buckley, and began to devote herself to writing.
In addition to her three books, Gail has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, New York Daily News, Washington Post, Vogue, Playboy, and People. (Adapted from encyclopedia.com and the publisher. Retrieved 2/14/2016.)
Book Reviews
The story of Buckley's ancestors is fascinating for many reasons. Her candid portraits of their experiences offer a window onto shameful episodes in American history that are more recent and relevant than many realize. The stories also represent at least a proxy for the untold stories of so many others whose lives have been conveniently forgotten, excised from national consciousness...Buckley's moving chronicle, like Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, should be read in schools across the country.
Christian Science Monitor
(Starred review.) In this thoroughly engaging family chronicle, Buckley reveals an expansive tapestry of African-American history since the Civil War. The story begins with her great-great-grandfather Moses Calhoun, a freed slave turned businessman.... Buckley’s awesomely informative shout-out to the Calhouns is a treat to read.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Buckley...writes here about her family history.... Although the author sometimes loses focus by including each major event in post-Civil War black history,...the book comes alive when she discusses the life of her famous mother and her own childhood.... [It] covers much of the same ground as Buckley's previous book, The Hornes. —Kate Stewart, U.S. Senate Lib., Washington, D.C.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [An] assiduously researched and gracefully written family history...entrancingly well-told.... Buckley’s superbly realized American family portrait is enthralling and resounding.
Booklist
[A] middle-class black family's journey of hard work, education, and aspiration in a deeply racist United States.... The author later weaves her own story of 1960s political awakening into this thoroughly jam-packed narrative of history and nostalgia....ambitious, relentless, and occasionally messy.
Kirkus Reviews
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