About this item
The vivid history of Beale Streeta lost world of swaggering musicians, glamorous madams, and ruthless politiciansand the battle for the soul of Memphis.Following the Civil War, Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, thrived as a cauldron of sex and song, violence and passion. But out of this turmoil emerged a center of black progress, optimism, and cultural ferment. Preston Lauterbach tells this vivid, fascinating story through the multigenerational saga of a family whose ambition, race pride, and moral complexity indelibly shaped the city that would loom so large in American life.Robert Church, who would become the Souths first black millionaire, was a mulatto slave owned by his white father. Having survived a deadly race riot in 1866, Church constructed an empire of vice in the booming river town.
About the Author
Author of The Chitlin' Circuit (W.W. Norton) , a Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and NPR best book of 2011, and Beale Street Dynasty (W.W. Norton) , a story of sex, song, and the struggle for the soul of Memphis, coming in April 2015.
