
Black Dynasty: The saga of the Stone and Porter families of Kentucky, as told to Geoffrey Hindley by Loretta Stone (Paperback)
Geoffrey Hindley (author)
£7.99
Paperback
336 Pages
Published: 14/09/2012
Published: 14/09/2012
Black Dynasty is a story of African-American life and ambition set in the first seventy years after the Civil War. It is a family saga about a black storekeeper in a remote company town in Kentucky, and how he exploits the business possibilities opened up by a modification in kerosene-lamp design, which he appropriates from his inventive young black shop assistant, to build a multi-million dollar family business, with repercussions far into the future.
The book's broad social and geographical sweep offers a mini history of post Civil War African American life, in-depth research means that the rounded, highly believable (sometimes controversial) characters play out their loves, ambitions, rivalries, triumphs and sufferings, against a credible and vivid background. Details of everyday life - artefacts, street scenes, characters and incidents from the historical record - pitch the reader into the dangerous realities of 1920s South Side Chicago, the horrors of Ku Klux Klan white 'justice' and the sometimes dubious politicking of evangelical religion. We crowd into Mott's Chicago Pekin Theater, for the running commentary by ticker tape from Reno Nevada on black heavy-weight Jack Johnson's championship triumph; cruise the Mississippi by river boat to the seedy nightlife violence of Natchez-under-the-Hill; tour Harlem's elegant nightclub scene with sensation seeking white socialites.
Through it all we see the ruthless commercial ambition of Willard Stone, creator of Stone's Kerosene Lamp Corporation, powerfully offset by the impassioned commitment and campaigning of Elsie 'Blaze' Marre, black women's rights activist, his childhood sweetheart turned remorseless critic. Meanwhile, music-crazy son and heir Willard Jnr, disowned by his father, is blowing his 'jass' horn all across Prohibition club-land.
Geoffrey Hindley worked in London publishing, then freelance as writer, lecturer and teacher in UK, Europe and the US. As visiting professor, he travelled pretty widely, seeing something of poorer neighbourhoods and riding railroad sleeping car from Chicago to New York.
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
ISBN: 9781780881959
Number of pages: 336
Dimensions: 216 x 138 x 29 mm
You may also be interested in...
Please sign in to write a review
Sign In / Register
Not registered? CREATE AN ACCOUNTCREATE A plus ACCOUNT
Sign In
Download the Waterstones App
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?
Click & Collect
Reserve online, pay on collection
Thank you for your reservation
Your order is now being processed and we have sent a confirmation email to you at
When will my order be ready to collect?
Following the initial email, you will be contacted by the shop to confirm that your item is available for collection.
Call us on or send us an email at
Unfortunately there has been a problem with your order
Please try again or alternatively you can contact your chosen shop on or send us an email at