Gail Lumet Buckley

W.E. B. Dubois labeled families such as the Calhouns the “Talented Tenth”: well educated, erudite and successful leaders poised to use their knowledge and position to uplift the other 90 percent of their race. Gail Lumet Buckley uses her deeply involved family as a prism through which we see the African American experience during the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great Migration, and the struggles for Civil Rights. In “The Black Calhouns”, Buckley traces family history back through her famous mother, singer Lena Horne, through the upper echelons of black New York society, all the way back to the family patriarch, Moses Calhoun. Moses was a favored house slave of the famed Calhoun political family. The end of the Civil War found Moses flourishing with entrepreneurial flair in multiple businesses. Moses rose to the top of Atlanta’s black community. He saw to it that his daughters and niece were well educated and went to college. There, W. E. B. Dubois had his heart broken by the beautiful Cora Calhoun, who chose Edwin Horne, instead. The young couple soon relocated to New York City, becoming heavily involved in politics (for him) and social causes (for her.) Their son, Teddy, Jr., and his wife Edna, were more entranced by a fast life in entertainment and the gambling trade. Their daughter Lena was a perfect combination of her grandparents’ idealism and social commitment and her parents’ love of the stage and music.

Buckley rightly can be proud of her family’s role in forming the New York chapter of the NAACP, various civic groups, newspapers and more. However, it is when Buckley describes her mother and the world she inhabited, that the book becomes more personal with a greater immediacy. Buckley’s skill as a historian is established through her work with PBS’ American Masters, and her prior two books: “The Hornes: An American Family” (1987) and “American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military From the Revolution to Desert Storm” (2002). “The Black Calhouns” is very similar in structure and content to the almost 30 year old “The Hornes.” Some who remember and enjoyed that book might find the newer one repetitive. Those who loved Lena Horne for her beauty, talent, and commitment to civil rights and social justice, will be entranced by this examination of her life and those of her forebears.

The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (més)