Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance

by Mark Whitaker

Overview

A brilliant, lively account of the Black Renaissance that burst forth in Pittsburgh from the 1920s through the 1950s—“Smoketown will appeal to anybody interested in black history and anybody who loves a good story...terrific, eminently readable...fascinating” (The Washington Post).

Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about noble, but doomed, working-class citizens. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country, urging black voters to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party, and then rallying black support for World War II. It fielded two of the greatest baseball teams of the Negro Leagues and introduced Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh was the childhood home of jazz pioneers Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner; Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibson—and August Wilson himself. Some of the most glittering figures of the era were changed forever by the time they spent in the city, from Joe Louis and Satchel Paige to Duke Ellington and Lena Horne.

Mark Whitaker’s Smoketown is a “rewarding trip to a forgotten special place and time” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. “Smoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other Black Renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked it...It’s thanks to such a gifted storyteller as Whitaker that this forgotten chapter of American history can finally be told in all its vibrancy and glory” (The New York Times Book Review).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501122422
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	01/29/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	287,036
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Mark Whitaker is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, My Long Trip Home, and Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance. The former managing editor of CNN Worldwide, he was previously the Washington bureau chief for NBC News and a reporter and editor at Newsweek, where he rose to become the first African-American leader of a national newsweekly.

Table of Contents

Preface xv

Cast of Characters xix

The Neighborhoods of Pittsburgh xxv

1 The Brown Bomber's Cornermen 1

2 The Negro Carnegies 25

3 The Calculating Crusader 53

4 The Rise and Fall of "Big Red" 89

5 Billy and Lena 123

6 The Double v Warriors 153

7 The Compleh Mr. B 193

8 "Jachie's Boswell" 231

9 The Women of "Up South" 271

10 The Bard of a Broken World 303

Ackknowledgments 341

Notes 345

Index 385

Editorial Reviews

…engrossing…Smoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other black renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked it as well as the often unheralded journalists who covered it, including P. L. Prattis, John C. Clarke, Frank Bolden, Billy Rowe and the photographer Teenie Harris. It's thanks to such a gifted storyteller as Whitaker that this forgotten chapter of American history can finally be told in all its vibrancy and glory.

The New York Times Book Review - Herb Boyd

12/18/2017
Former CNN and Newsweek editor Whitaker (Cosby: His Life and Times) rebounds from his controversial Cosby biography with an informative and illuminating account of Smoketown, an African-American community in Pittsburgh. Centered in the city’s Hill District, Smoketown thrived from the 1920s to the ’50s. Though Smoketown was smaller than New York’s Harlem or Chicago’s South Side, Whitaker compares the flourishing enclave where his grandparents lived to “fifteenth-century Florence and early-twentieth-century Vienna: a miraculous flowering of social and cultural achievement.” Smoketown’s culture was made possible, Whitaker writes, by the great migration from the South and the city’s exceptional educational opportunities. Whitaker writes of such prominent Smoketown figures as Robert L. Vann, publisher of the Pittsburgh Courier, the most widely read black newspaper in America; playwright August Wilson, who celebrated the power of community “whether in the ordinary life of rooming houses and jitney stations, or in the grandest accomplishments of the Hill District in its heyday.” He also acknowledges Smoketown’s contributions to the sports world, including boxer Joe Louis and baseball stars Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, and profiles musical icons Billy Eckstine, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, and Billy Strayhorn, as well as photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris. Whitaker shines a well-deserved and long-overdue spotlight on this city within a city. Maps & photos. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"[A] rewarding trip to a forgotten special place and time...With the publication of Mr. Whitaker’s enjoyable and long-overdue time trip back to Smoketown, he and Simon & Schuster have given the Hill District and its talented ghosts the national props they’ve always deserved."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

That Smoketown is a joy to read shouldn't obscure the seriousness of its intentions. In vividly recreating the mid-twentieth-century heyday of black Pittsburgh, an almost magical locale for journalism, sports, music, politics, and business, Whitaker is also offering an alternate version of African-American history. This is a story of strength, pride, and achievement, where racism is never absent but also never more powerful than the strong will of his large, fascinating cast of characters.

Nicholas Lemann

A thoroughly researched celebration of the black community and culture in Pittsburgh from the 1920s through the 1950s. Pittsburgh’s black residents, Whitaker argues, offered cultural contributions that significantly shaped black history—and the nation. With the diligence of a seasoned anthropologist, Whitaker spotlights the city’s stunning feats of black achievement and resilience through the lens of his extensive cast of influencers and icons. While some of the names may be unfamiliar, each subject’s narrative is a nuanced portrayal meant to challenge our country’s often narrow, dismissive version of black history. Cultural heavyweights such as boxer Joe Louis are treated as historical catalysts rather than extraordinary oddities. Black history, as evident in the cultural renaissance of Pittsburgh, is not defined by oppression. Despite the setbacks of systemic racism and discrimination, black excellence flourishes regardless of the white gaze.”

Bookpage

Mark Whitaker has given Pittsburgh's wondrously rich black culture its due at long last.

Smoketown is illuminating history and an absolute delight to read.

David Maraniss

Who knew that Pittsburgh had an African American renaissance as vibrant as Harlem's and arguably more consequential? Mark Whitaker knew, and he rescues from unjust obscurity an American episode that continues to reverberate.

George F. Will

Smoketown brilliantly offers us a chance to see this other black renaissance and spend time with the many luminaries who sparked it as well as the often unheralded journalists who covered it...It’s thanks to such a gifted storyteller as Whitaker that this forgotten chapter of American history can finally be told in all its vibrancy and glory.

The New York Times Book Review

Pittsburgh was one of the country’s citadels of black aspiration in music, sports, business and culture. This is the world affectionately summoned back to life with zest and passion by Mark Whitaker in Smoketown. There’s something close to enchantment to be found in the stories Whitaker unpacks piece by piece, name by glittering name. Black excellence, black talent and black achievement were of such incandescence in Pittsburgh for most of the late century’s first half that one imagines them piercing through the thickest mesh of soot and smog draping the city during its coal-and-steel heyday. . . . Some of these stories have had books of their own. Others seem poised for books of their own. For now, this one, fashioned with love and rigor, provides these stories a sturdy, substantial home.

USA Today

Terrific, eminently readable . . . fascinating . . . Smoketown will appeal to anybody interested in black history and anybody who loves a good story. In short, anybody.

The Washington Post

A terrific look at the sophisticated history of black Pittsburgh . . . deeply researched and gracefully written . . . definitive.

Pittsburgh Quarterly

The fascinating and never-before-told story of Pittsburgh’s black renaissance—a vibrant and creative community that produced a great black newspaper, a great black baseball team, a great black industrial tycoon, a great black painter, a great black playwright, and some of the greatest black musical talent in America. Thank you, Mark Whitaker.

Gail Lumet Buckley

Mark Whitaker says his remarkable mid-twentieth century Pittsburgh “was a black version of the story of early twentieth-century Vienna.” Mr. Whitaker is so riveting a storyteller that the reader even wonders if Belle Epoque Vienna had the equivalent of a Billy Eckstine, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Joe Louis, or an August Wilson.

David Levering Lewis

An enticing history of the black culture of mid-20th century Pittsburgh, filled with engaging musicians, athletes, and journalists.

The Guardian

That Smoketown is a joy to read shouldn't obscure the seriousness of its intentions. In vividly recreating the mid-twentieth-century heyday of black Pittsburgh, an almost magical locale for journalism, sports, music, politics, and business, Whitaker is also offering an alternate version of African-American history. This is a story of strength, pride, and achievement, where racism is never absent but also never more powerful than the strong will of his large, fascinating cast of characters.

Nicholas Lemann

Pittsburgh was one of the country’s citadels of black aspiration in music, sports, business and culture. This is the world affectionately summoned back to life with zest and passion by Mark Whitaker in Smoketown. There’s something close to enchantment to be found in the stories Whitaker unpacks piece by piece, name by glittering name. Black excellence, black talent and black achievement were of such incandescence in Pittsburgh for most of the late century’s first half that one imagines them piercing through the thickest mesh of soot and smog draping the city during its coal-and-steel heyday. . . . Some of these stories have had books of their own. Others seem poised for books of their own. For now, this one, fashioned with love and rigor, provides these stories a sturdy, substantial home.

USA Today

A thoroughly researched celebration of the black community and culture in Pittsburgh from the 1920s through the 1950s. Pittsburgh’s black residents, Whitaker argues, offered cultural contributions that significantly shaped black history—and the nation. With the diligence of a seasoned anthropologist, Whitaker spotlights the city’s stunning feats of black achievement and resilience through the lens of his extensive cast of influencers and icons. While some of the names may be unfamiliar, each subject’s narrative is a nuanced portrayal meant to challenge our country’s often narrow, dismissive version of black history. Cultural heavyweights such as boxer Joe Louis are treated as historical catalysts rather than extraordinary oddities. Black history, as evident in the cultural renaissance of Pittsburgh, is not defined by oppression. Despite the setbacks of systemic racism and discrimination, black excellence flourishes regardless of the white gaze.”

Booklist

01/01/2018
For several decades in the 20th century, the Pittsburgh Courier was the most influential black newspaper in America. At the height of its success, the paper had 14 regional editions and a circulation of almost half a million subscribers. The newspaper helped to promote the Double V campaign during World War II and to shift the black vote from republican to democrat, all while covering rising sports stars such as Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson. In his latest book, Whitaker (Cosby: His Life and Times) looks at Pittsburgh's forgotten impact on black culture and sports between the 1920s Harlem Renaissance and the later civil rights era. The narrative is structured around the activity of the Courier and the power it held over black America during World War II. Whitaker's attempt to broaden the story by including chapters on jazz greats born in Pittsburgh and August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle is ultimately unnecessary as the history of the paper and its influence on the larger culture is enough of a story on its own. VERDICT Whitaker provides important research on a pivotal moment in African American history, but at times the narrative strays a little too far from Pittsburgh.—John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston

Library Journal

★ 2017-10-30
A "glittering saga" about the other black Renaissance.Veteran newsman and reporter Whitaker (Cosby: His Life and Times, 2014, etc.) explored his own family's black history in My Long Trip Home (2011), which included stories about his Pittsburgh grandparents' funeral business. Here, he returns to the city to reveal its incredibly rich black heritage from the late 19th century to the 1950s. As the author writes, Pittsburgh had a "glorious stretch" as "one of the most vibrant and consequential communities of color in U.S. history." Drawing on a five-page cast of characters, he tells this lively story with a linked series of family histories. In the Gilded Age, Pittsburgh had no shortage of wealthy entrepreneurs: Carnegie, Westinghouse, Heinz, Mellon, and Frick. But there was also Cumberland "Cap" Posey, a black steamboat engineer and coal tycoon who had the foresight to invest in the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper that is at the heart of this story. In 1910, Posey hired a black attorney, Robert Lee Vann, the "calculating crusader," who would be its farsighted editor. Every step of the way, as Whitaker vividly chronicles Pittsburgh's key black figures in music, sports, and politics, the Courier is front and center. Its sports reporters championed the rise of the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis; as his popularity grew, the paper's circulation skyrocketed, and it became America's most influential black newspaper. Pittsburgh now had the best Negro League baseball teams, thanks to racketeer-turned-promotor Gus "Big Red" Greenlee, and the Hill District, home of the future "bard of a broken world," playwright August Wilson. Sports reporter Wendell Smith played a major role in integrating baseball with his coverage of Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson, and the Courier also chronicled the rise of two of music's greatest pianists, the self-taught prodigy Erroll Garner and the jazz composer Billy Strayhorn.An expansive, prodigiously researched, and masterfully told history.

Kirkus Reviews