The fascinating biography of Eunice Hunton Carter, a social justice and civil rights trailblazer and the only woman prosecutor on the Luciano trial Eunice Hunton Carter rose to public prominence in 1936 as both the only woman and the only person of color on Thomas Dewey’s famous gangbuster team that prosecuted mobster Lucky Luciano. But her life before and after the trial remains relatively unknown. In this definitive biography on this trailblazing social justice activist, authors Marilyn S. Greenwald and Yun Li tell the story of this unknown but critical pioneer in the struggle for racial and gender equality in the twentieth century.Carter worked harder than most men because of her race and gender, and Greenwald and Li reflect on her lifelong commitment to her adopted home of Harlem, where she was viewed as a role model, arts patron, community organizer, and, later, as a legal advisor to the United Nations, the National Council of Negro Women, and several other national and global organizations.Carter was both a witness to and a participant in many pivotal events of the early and mid– twentieth century, including the Harlem riot of 1935 and the social scene during the Harlem Renaissance.Using transcripts, letters, and other primary and secondary sources from several archives in the United States and Canada, the authors paint a colorful portrait of how Eunice continued the legacy of the Carter family, which valued education, perseverance, and hard work: a grandfather who was a slave who bought his freedom and became a successful businessman in a small colony of former slaves in Ontario, Canada; a father who nearly single-handedly integrated the nation’s YMCAs in the Jim Crow South; and a mother who provided aid to Black soldiers in France during World War I and who became a leader in several global and domestic racial equality causes.Carter’s inspirational multi-decade career working in an environment of bias, segregation, and patriarchy in Depression-era America helped pave the way for those who came after her.
Оглавление
Marilyn Greenwald. Eunice Hunton Carter
EUNICE HUNTON CARTER
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
1
Heirs to the Struggle
2
Free But Not Equal
3
One Vision in Her Eye, One Cry in Her Soul
4
The Business of Reaching New Heights
5
From Squash Racquet to Racket Squasher
6
“I Must Save My Sister”
7
Getting Lucky: The People v. Charles Luciano
8
“Making History for the Race”
9
“A Prelude to Greater Tasks”
10
The Aftermath
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sources
NOTES. 1. Heirs to the Struggle
2. Free But Not Equal
3. One Vision in Her Eye, One Cry in Her Soul
4. The Business of Reaching New Heights
5. From Squash Racquet to Racket Squasher
6. “I Must Save My Sister”
7. Getting Lucky: The People v. Charles Luciano
8. “Making History for the Race”
9. “A Prelude to Greater Tasks”
10. The Aftermath
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Отрывок из книги
A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice
Marilyn S. Greenwald and Yun Li
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As the daughter of a successful businessman, Addie wanted for little growing up. William Hunton loved his life growing up in the small, close-knit community of Chatham and had hardly any desire or opportunity to leave Canada. But these two people who lived on opposite sides of the North American continent also had much in common: a love of learning, a strong spiritual leaning, and the ability and desire to work hard—qualities that had been instilled in them by their fathers. (Both Addie and William had mothers who died when they were young. William and his siblings were raised primarily by their father.) Each also had a love of and talent for writing, a pastime that would sustain them throughout their lives and allow them to leave behind vital records of their experiences and of the historical times in which they lived.
In her extensive research into the Hunton family, Christine Lutz examines three generations of Huntons in relation to their devotion to Pan-Africanism, an ideology of Black political, cultural, and intellectual thought that centers around the belief that a brotherhood of African people around the world share a common history and destiny. This sense of shared identity, defined by Pan-Africanism in the early twentieth century, was the focus of several major conferences held around the world. Lutz maintains that the concept of Pan-Africanism in the Hunton family originated with Stanton Hunton, and was carried on through the work of Addie and William Hunton and then by their children, Eunice and Alphaeus. It was this sense of mission and shared identity that attracted Addie Waites to William Hutton. And, ultimately, they became part of a network of activists around the world who worked to reverse the ill effects of the slave trade and colonialism and to counter discrimination.
