Publishers Weekly
★ 08/28/2023
Historian Ford (Liberated Threads) sets forth a riveting portrait of the “doyenne of Harlem society,” Mollie Lewis Moon (1907–1990), charting her rise from “leftist social worker to famed African American fundraiser.” Born into poverty in Hattiesburg, Miss., Mollie’s family eventually relocated to Gary, Ind., where she briefly worked as a pharmacist. She moved to Harlem in 1930 and became politically active in leftist causes. In 1932 she joined friends in Moscow as a member of the cast of Black and White, a film about the horrors of segregation in the U.S., which was never completed. Upon returning to New York, she reconnected with castmate Henry Moon, who became her third husband. After landing a job with the N.Y.C. Department of Welfare as a caseworker in Harlem, she was recruited as a fundraiser in 1941 by the Harlem Community Art Center; soon after, she inaugurated her “signature” Beaux Arts Ball, a costumed “inter-racial get-together” that attracted such celebrities as Langston Hughes. She founded the National Urban League Guild (a “hip and stylish” fund-raising branch of the League), hosted “star-studded” dinner parties, and connected with wealthy civil rights supporters, including Winthrop Rockefeller (a partnership which fueled rumors of an affair). Frank in its handling of intimate details, this deeply researched account documents the bohemian partying, high-class social connections, and far-left politics of the early civil rights movement. It’s a vivid behind-the-scenes snapshot of a dazzling era. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"In Our Secret Society, Tanisha Ford expertly uses the extravagant life of Mollie Moon to tell the hidden history of the Civil Rights Movement: a complicated tale of how the movement was funded. Captivating. Gripping. Smart." — Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning
"A vivid behind-the-scenes snapshot of a dazzling era." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"In Our Secret Society, Tanisha Ford chronicles the exhilarating life of Mollie Moon. With cinematic sweep and methodological innovation, Ford brilliantly challenges received narratives of black politics and imaginatively forges new ways of knowing and understanding social movements and the little known but indispensable roles Black women like Moon have played in them. This book is beautifully written, with the passion, wit and style of its subject. A stunning accomplishment." — Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of the award-winning Read Until You Understand
“In Our Secret Society, Tanisha Ford follows the money and reveals an astonishing, untold story of Black women who drove the civil rights movement by commanding the Black freedom financial grid. Following the escapades of the captivatingly brilliant Mollie Lewis Moon…this dazzlingly told rise and fall of the movement’s ‘bag women’ – savvy, sensational, but also burned by sexism – is a tale for our own times about the hazards of mixing politics and philanthropy in the interest of Black liberation.” — Martha Jones, author of Vanguard
“In Our Secret Society, Mollie Moon finally gets long overdue credit for the critical role she played in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Writing with care and passion, Tanisha Ford shows how Moon combined her commitment to activism with her love of the social whirl and emerged as a fundraising genius…This is an essential read that broadens our understanding of the centrality of Black women in the movement. Ford’s work is as brilliant, as lively, and as gorgeous as Mollie Moon herself.” — Jill Watts, author of The Black Cabinet
"This riveting, beautifully-crafted investigation of the money moves of the Civil Rights Movement’s “bag women” shows Tanisha Ford, one of our nation’s top historians, at her absolute finest. Here is the rare text that celebrates the working-class—small dollar donors that made a movement possible—while reminding us of the intellectual prowess and political savvy of the Black women power brokers who put their community’s money to its highest uses: the pursuit of Black freedom." — Brittney Cooper, New York Times Bestselling author of Eloquent Rage
“This is a story I will treasure for a lifetime." — Kia Goosby, Vanity Fair
"The brilliant Tanisha C. Ford has recovered the sparkling story of Mollie Moon, whose fundraising helped support the work of the civil rights movement. With rigorous research and signature finesse, Ford illustrates the oft-forgotten centrality of women in the movement." — Ms.
“You shouldn’t miss Our Secret Society. You need to know about this almost-hidden slice of history. You’ll like this book one hundred percent.” — Philadelphia Tribune
"Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement" rescues from an undeserved obscurity one of the truly significant women who made the Civil Rights Movement the success that it was (and continues to be) as a much-needed national tool to continue to establish racial equality in our still racially turbulent American politics and culture." — Midwest Book Review
"Our Secret Society is a fascinating book that brings readers into the personal side of politics and movement building—through the life of a Black woman. All the tea. All the politics. The parties. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at everything Black. I love this book." — Michael Harriot, New York Times Bestselling author of Black AF History
"Our Secret Society is a gem and a MUST HAVE in every Black woman’s personal library!" — Candice Marie Benbow, author of Red Lip Theology
Kirkus Reviews
2023-10-05
A fluent study of the role of wealthy individuals in the funding of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and beyond.
“Political intrigue, compromise and confrontation, beautiful gowns and luxury hotels, protests and violent uprisings”—all are part of the story of civil rights, writes Ford, a scholar of Black historical fashion and culture. At the center was Mollie Moon (1907-1990), a committed leftist who lived for a time in the Soviet Union as a “New Negro” activist. Disillusioned both by the “two competing agendas” of the Communist Party—one fomenting revolution, the other trying to secure diplomatic recognition by the U.S. government for the purposes of commerce—and by the racism prevalent in the U.S., Moon went to Germany just in time for the rise of Nazism. She then moved to New York, where she married and became a founder of what is called “Black internationalism.” Trained as a pharmacist, she later became a federal government employee and, in the aftermath of the Depression, found herself and her husband “becoming civic leaders who were deeply invested in electoral politics.” Moving easily among white power brokers, the Roosevelt administration’s “Black Cabinet,” and the African American community, Moon was well positioned to become an ambassador for civil rights to the powerful. She organized balls, fashion shows, dinners, and other fundraising events for the Urban League and other organizations. In the more militant 1960s, Moon and other Black civic leaders came under criticism as having “become so caught up in the trappings of the upper class that they were of no use to the people,” which helps explain why her contributions have since been overlooked—even if, as Ford writes, “the reality is that movements cost money.”
A welcome addition to the literature of civil rights, casting light on a little-known corner of the struggle.
