Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood

by Fatima Shaik, The Historic New Orleans Collection (Editor)

Overview

Selected by Kirkus for "Best of 2021: Our Favorite Nonfiction"

It is impossible to imagine New Orleans, and by extension American history, without the vibrant and singular Creole culture. In the face of an oppressive white society, members of the Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle built a community and held it together through the era of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow terrorism. Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood follows Ludger Boguille, his family, and friends through landmark events—from the Haitian Revolution to the birth of jazz—that shaped New Orleans and the United States.

The story begins with the author’s father rescuing a century’s worth of handwritten journals, in French, from a trash hauler’s pickup truck. From the journals’ pages emerged one of the most important multiethnic, intellectual communities in the US South: educators, world-traveling merchants, soldiers, tradesmen, and poets. Although Louisiana law classified them as men of color, Negroes, and Blacks, the Economie brothers rejected racism and colorism to fight for suffrage and education rights for all.

A descendant of the Economie’s community, author Fatima Shaik has constructed a meticulously detailed nonfiction narrative that reads like an epic novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780917860805
Publisher:	Historic New Orleans Collection, The
Publication date:	02/25/2021
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	1,113,241
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Fatima Shaik, a former professor and journalist, is a trustee of PEN America and author of six previous short story collections and young adult novels. Economy Hall is her first nonfiction work.

What People are Saying About This

Lolis Eric Elie

In Economy Hall, Fatima Shaik has taken mere stick figures of American history and brought them to life as wise, vulnerable, determined men. This is a much-needed and long-awaited work.

Editorial Reviews

In Economy Hall, Fatima Shaik has taken mere stick figures of American history and brought them to life as wise, vulnerable, determined men. This is a much-needed and long-awaited work.

Lolis Eric Elie

In Economy Hall, Fatima Shaik has taken mere stick figures of American history and brought them to life as wise, vulnerable, determined men. This is a much-needed and long-awaited work.

Lolis Eric Elie

"In Economy Hall, Fatima Shaik has taken mere stick figures of American history and brought them to life as wise, vulnerable, determined men. This is a much-needed and long-awaited work. "—Lolis Eric Elie, writer for the HBO series Treme

"Journalist and novelist Shaik blows the dust off the ancient records of an African American society, revealing a forgotten past.... A lively, readable story that nicely complicates the view of racial and ethnic relations in the South of old. "—author of Kirkus, starred review

"Shaik’s rendition of her hometown is lyrical and mysterious and always captivating. "—author of New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

★ 2020-11-18
Journalist and novelist Shaik blows the dust off the ancient records of an African American society, revealing a forgotten past.

The Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle, born in 19th-century New Orleans, was dedicated to benevolent causes of tremendous political implication, including the right of education and the franchise. Its members—all men—“rejected racism and colorism,” a natural outcome of the fact that so many of them were of mixed African and European heritage, the vaunted “Creoles” of the city’s storied past. The “Economistes” who are revealed through contemporary journals kept by official recorders—and from which Shaik works—have mostly French and Spanish surnames, but it is telling that a later president of the organization bore the name Cohen; his father was Jewish and mother, Black. As one member said in the post-Reconstruction era, the Société “should be able to receive Jews and Chinese” who applied for membership. Its headquarters destroyed by hurricanes half a century ago, the Société performed many functions: It was a place for members to gather to read, smoke, drink, play billiards, and otherwise socialize, but it was also a center for a business and intellectual community that advanced the causes of “free men of color.” That advancement met with powerful resistance, particularly after the Civil War, when lynchings and other assaults on the Black community became common as a means of terrorizing it into accepting second-class status. One particularly terrible incident involved city police officers who shot African Americans who were carrying a Union flag. Soon thereafter, the organization was almost co-opted by Whites, who founded a rival organization called, misleadingly, the Economy Mutual Aid Association. In a richly detailed, fluent narrative, Shaik sadly observes that, Reconstruction having failed dismally, many of the members of the Société took their own lives. Even so, the organization carried on to make significant contributions, including giving a young musician named Louis Armstrong a start.

A lively, readable story that nicely complicates the view of racial and ethnic relations in the South of old.

Kirkus Reviews

Shaik’s rendition of her hometown is lyrical and mysterious and always captivating.

New York Times Book Review