The Senator and the Socialite

The story of a slave-turned-US senator and an African American dynasty: “A compelling portrait of the Bruce family’s rise, dynamics and downfall.” —The Washington Post 



Spanning more than a century, Lawrence Otis’s illuminating biography is a fascinating look at race and class in the latter decades of nineteenth-century America, witnessed through the life of Blanche Kelso Bruce—United States senator from Mississippi and head of America’s first black dynasty. Otis reveals how Bruce rose from slavery to achieve power and prestige in the aftermath of the Civil War. With his wife, the daughter of a prominent Philadelphia physician, he would break social and racial barriers—a legacy continued by their children until scandal destroyed the family’s wealth and stature. Filled with triumph, tragedy, and the complexities and conflicts of the Reconstruction-era South, The Senator and the Socialite brings into focus an important yet little-known part of our nation’s past.

“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

“A poignant tale of struggle, accomplishment and weakness.” —The Washington Post 

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