From Library Journal
Alonzo F. Herndon was born into slavery in 1858. In 1927, he died a millionaire with a legacy that lives on today. Merritt, director of the Herndon Home, a historic site in Atlanta, chronicles Herndon's rise from slavery to sharecropping to barbering to the founding of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. The narrative also covers his two marriages and his relationship with his only child, Norris Bumstead Herndon. Photographs of family members and the Herndon home, businesses, and properties also make up a significant portion of the book. Merritt's telling of the Herndon story is informative but not critical; she doesn't place Herndon's unique story in a broader sociohistorical context. Herndon amassed his wealth catering to a white clientele and living relatively carefree in a white neighborhood at a time when lynching was a common occurrence and Jim Crow laws were established to prevent black advancement. What makes the Herndon family story so valuable today is that their experience is further evidence of how diverse the African American experience has been. Suitable for black studies collections and Georgia-area libraries. Sherri Barnes, Univ. of California Lib., Santa Barbara
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Review
"This gracefully written and highly informative study of the Herndon family of Atlanta reveals much about the overwhelming odds that confronted talented and ambitious African Americans in the era of virulent racism."--Willard B. Gatewood, author of Aristocrats of Color
"Merritt has given us a portrait of the complex social order of the American South as it was refracted through the experience of the Herndons of Atlanta. But she has given us much more by way of a personalized but highly historical narrative. The base story is the ascent of the young ambitious Alonzo Herndon making his way from rural Georgia poverty to commercial success in turn of the century Atlanta. We learn of his relations with diverse communities, the joys and sorrows of his first marriage, the autumnal calm of his second marriage, his parenting of a dutiful son. There is the everpresent straitjacket of segregation, the racial violence of the Atlanta riot, contrasted with the flowering of black higher education in Atlanta. Amid these are surprises and discoveries. The geographical range of the Herndon story extends from Boston to the citrus groves of Central Florida, as well as to Europe of the Grand Tour. Along the way we encounter figures as diverse as David Belasco, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois. The Herndons is a book of enduring interest that will fascinate the scholar and the general reader."--Richard A. Long, Emory University
"Merritt has proven herself to be a skilled researcher and accomplished historian. She vividly mirrors late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century society and paints a portrait of the Herndon family that will enthrall readers."--Michael L. Thurmond, Georgia Commissioner of Labor
"What makes the Herndon family story so valuable today is that their experience is further evidence of how diverse the African American experience has been."--Library Journal
"This family portrait illuminates much more than one family. . . . Merritt's discussion of race relations, social conditions, and Southern history within a family biography is an American story that warms the heart and lifts the spirit."--Virginia Quarterly Review
"The Herndons is not only the story of a remarkable family, but also the story of Atlanta, African American progress, and life in the urban South at the turn of the twentieth century."--Atlanta Metro
"Merritt has written a solid general-audience history of this important African-American family, one that takes the reader into their intimate lives."--Georgia Historical Quarterly
"A beautifully bound and illustrated volume . . . by someone who should know the family history well—the curator for twenty years of the Herndon Museum, Carole Merritt."--Covington News
