Senator and the Socialite (Graham) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
A compelling portrait of the Bruce family’s rise, dynamics and downfall.... A poignant tale of struggle, accomplishment...an illuminating account.
Eric Foner - Washington Post


Not just a history but a revealing commentary on race and class, and their force in shaping our lives today.
Chicago Tribune


Excellent history of slavery, Reconstruction, post-Reconstruction, late 19th century politics and the misunderstood differences between early Republicans and Democrats.
San Francisco Chronicle


Graham is a superb storyteller, and the Bruce dynasty perfect fodder for this gifted writer.
Amersterdam News


Graham digs deep and unearths secrets in…his absorbing book on money, class and color issues.
Essence


In 1878, the Times ran its first wedding announcement for a black couple: Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce, a former slave who entered the Senate in the fading days of Reconstruction (many newspapers ignored his election, assuming that he would never be seated), and Josephine Willson, a daughter of the light-skinned black élite. The Bruces established what the author calls America’s first black dynasty, although its members “lived much of their lives outside of black circles.” Graham, whose “Our Kind of People” profiled the black upper class, recovers the history of a family that broke barriers in Washington and at Exeter and Harvard. At the same time, he offers a devastating view of the compromises it made.
The New Yorker


Buried within this account of a black family that includes "a United States senator; a bank president; [and] a Washington socialite" is a rags to riches to welfare tale that ought to intrigue, but merely bores. Slave-born Blanche K. Bruce (1841-1898) was the first African-American to serve a full term in the United State Senate (1874-1880). Having obtained wealth in addition to political clout in Mississippi, he acquired elite class status through his marriage to Josephine Willson, daughter of a wealthy dentist whose freeborn roots extended back to the late 18th century. The first half of this repetitious family biography focuses largely on Bruce's political life, the second on his son Roscoe, who after a stint at Tuskegee returns to Washington as superintendent of "Colored Schools." The family spirals through a decline that finds Roscoe managing an apartment complex in Harlem and his sons jailed for fraud. In tracing the fortunes of the clan, Graham (Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class) allows an absorption with class status to obscure fresher areas, such as Blanche Bruce's involvement in the serious work of the black women's club movementlists.
Publishers Weekly


Graham, an attorney and noted author (Our Kind of People), tells the fascinating story of Blanche K. Bruce, the first African American elected to a full term in the U.S. Senate (he represented Mississippi from 1875 to 1881), and of his heiress wife, family, and descendants. Graham opens with an account of Bruce's rise from Virginia slavery to a position of power and influence, first in the Senate, then as a government bureaucrat in Washington, DC, until his death in 1898. He then details the sad story of the downward mobility experienced by Bruce's son, Roscoe, and grandson, Roscoe Jr. The family's downfall was propelled partly by an extravagant lifestyle that ultimately went beyond its means and culminated in a jail term served by Roscoe Jr. in the 1930s. In the end, Blanche's son worked in a laundry despite his Harvard degree, and his granddaughter passed for white. Unfortunately, this interesting saga is marred by errors: whole sentences are repeated unnecessarily, the chronology is often confusing, and Boston, it seems, is 500 miles from New York City. Still, given the importance of the story it tells, this is recommended for major libraries. —A.O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN
Library Journal


Graham details the political machinations of the post-Reconstruction South to keep blacks from rising above servitude, the venality of congressional politics that went along with the injustices, and one man's attempts to build and maintain a dynasty in the midst of great social and political turmoil. —Vanessa Bush
Booklist


A former slave, Blanche Kelso Bruce, becomes a U.S. Senator (1875-81), a man of wealth and prestige; a couple of generations later, all is gone. Graham, who has published previously on race and class (Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class, 1999, etc.), ends with a sad image. At a 2002 unveiling of a portrait of Sen. Bruce in the U.S. Capitol, only one member of the populous Bruce family attended. (Some, we learn, are apparently passing for white.) The author charts the spectacular rise and fall of the Bruces. Born in 1841, Bruce moved around a bit with his white owners, who were involved both in tobacco and cotton. After his manumission (the details of which are sketchy), Bruce barely escaped Quantrill's raiders in Kansas and, after a brief stop at Oberlin College (he ran out of money, didn't graduate), ended up in Mississippi, where he profited mightily from Reconstruction and from the recent enfranchisement of freed slaves. After holding a few offices (including county sheriff), Bruce won the Senate election in the state legislature and headed off to Washington. He married a well-to-do woman from a prominent black family and with his own healthy investments in Mississippi real estate, they lived well and sent their son, Roscoe, to Phillips Exeter and Harvard, where he excelled. After the senator died, both his widow and son worked for Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee. But Roscoe, says Graham, was an arrogant man who preferred the company of whites, and he soon fell from grace (he'd once dined with the Rockefellers). The fortune melted away in the next generation—as did the prestige. Roscoe's son (also named Roscoe) served a prison sentence; a daughter passed for white; a third son also had legal difficulties. Graham's research is impressive and comprehensive—though some disjointedness, abruptness and occasional omissions suggest substantial textual cuts. A compelling story that shows how the American Dream can transmute into the American Nightmare.
Kirkus Reviews