Black Moses
A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State
-
- ¥2,000
発行者による作品情報
One of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction
One of The Washington Post's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year
A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick
“Powerful… [and] fascinating.” —The Washington Post
The remarkable story of Edward McCabe, a Black man who tried to establish a Black state within the United States.
In this paradigm-shattering work of American history, Caleb Gayle recounts the extraordinary tale of Edward McCabe, a Black man who championed the audacious idea to create a state within the Union governed by and for Black people — and the racism, politics, and greed that thwarted him.
As the sweeping changes and brief glimpses of hope brought by the Civil War and Reconstruction began to wither, anger at the opportunities available to newly freed Black people were on the rise. As a result, both Blacks and whites searched for new places to settle. That was when Edward McCabe, a Black businessman and a rising political star in the American West, set in motion his plans to found a state within the Union for Black people to live in and govern. His chosen site: Oklahoma, a place that the U.S. government had deeded to Indigenous people in the 1830s when it forced thousands of them to leave their homes under Indian Removal, which became known as the Trail of Tears.
McCabe lobbied politicians in Washington, D.C., Kansas, and elsewhere as he exhorted Black people to move to Oklahoma to achieve their dreams of self-determination and land ownership. His rising profile as a leader and spokesman for Black people as well as his willingness to confront white politicians led him to become known as Black Moses. And like his biblical counterpart, McCabe nearly made it to the promised land but was ultimately foiled by politics, business interests, and the growing ambitions of white settlers who also wanted the land.
In Black Moses, Gayle brings to vivid life the world of Edward McCabe: the Black people who believed in his dream of a Black state, the white politicians who didn't, and the larger challenges of confronting the racism and exclusion that bedeviled Black people's attempts to carve a place in America for themselves. Gayle draws from extraordinary research and reporting to reveal an America that almost was.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this enthralling saga, journalist Gayle (We Refuse to Forget) resurfaces the little-remembered late-19th-century effort to turn Oklahoma into a Black state. He focuses on the movement's leader, Edward McCabe (1850–1920), tracing his rise from Wall Street clerk to one of the first prominent American proponents of Black separatism and self-governance. In Gayle's telling, McCabe's story is one of ambition continually thwarted but undeterred—on Wall Street, where he got his start after a fairly well-to-do upbringing, Black clerks were relegated to menial tasks, so he moved to Chicago. There he clerked for retail magnate Potter Palmer, under whose tutelage McCabe "learned how to sell a dream." Still unsatisfied, he headed West, landing in Kansas, where a town on the cusp of insolvency presented him an opportunity to get into government. After becoming the first Black man in America elected as a state auditor, he was undermined by a racist smear campaign during his run for a third term. Yet, Odysseus-like, he simply moved on again, but this time in full possession of the political and organizational power to lead a movement, issuing advertisements throughout the country encouraging Black settlers to migrate en masse to Oklahoma Territory (and, incidentally, vote for McCabe for governor, a bid he ultimately lost; afterward, he continued on in politics still undaunted if somewhat diminished). Gayle's stylish, brisk account elegantly incorporates many tangents (including spotlighting the Native nations being dispossessed by McCabe's efforts). It's one not to miss.
