An engrossing social history of the unsinkable Mollie Moon, the
stylish founder of the National Urban League Guild and fundraiser
extraordinaire who reigned over the glittering "Beaux Arts
Ball,” the social event of New York and Harlem society for fifty
years—a glamorous event rivalling today’s Met Gala, drawing
America’s wealthy and cultured, both Black and white.
Our Secret
Society brilliantly illuminates a little known yet highly
significant aspect of the civil rights movement that has been long
overlooked—the powerhouse fundraising effort that supported the
movement—the luncheons, galas, cabarets, and traveling exhibitions
attended by middle-class and working-class Black families, the Negro
press, and titans of industry, including Winthrop Rockefeller.
No one knew this
world better or ruled over it with more authority than Mollie Moon.
With her husband Henry Lee Moon, the longtime publicist for the
NAACP, Mollie became half of one of the most influential couples of
the period. Vivacious and intellectually curious, Mollie frequently
hosted political salons attended by guests ranging from Langston
Hughes to Lorraine Hansberry. As the president of the National Urban
League Guild, the fundraising arm of the National Urban League;
Mollie raised millions to fund grassroots activists battling for
economic justice and racial equality. She was a force behind the
mutual aid network that connected Black churches, domestic and
blue-collar laborers, social clubs, and sororities and fraternities
across the country.
Historian and
cultural critic Tanisha C. Ford brings Mollie into focus as never
before, charting her rise from Jim Crow Mississippi to doyenne of
Manhattan and Harlem, where she became one of the most influential
philanthropists of her time—a woman feared, resented, yet widely
respected. She chronicles Mollie’s larger-than-life antics through
exhaustive research, never-before-revealed letters, and dozens of
interviews.
Our Secret
Society ushers us into a world with its own rhythm and rules, led
by its own Who’s Who of African Americans in politics, sports,
business, and entertainment. It is both a searing portrait of a
remarkable period in America, spanning from the early 1930s through
the late 1960s, and a strategic economic blueprint today’s
activists can emulate.
Our Secret
Society includes 16 pages of never-before-seen photographs.