Illinois State Library

General Information

Name:  Juliet E.K. Walker  

Genre:

Born: Chicago, Illinois

University Press of Kentucky,. .

The story of Free Frank is not only a testament to human courage and resourcefulness but affords new insight into the American frontier. Born a slave in the South Carolina piedmont in 1777, Frank died a free man in 1854 in a town he had founded in western Illinois. His accomplishments, creditable for any frontiersman, were for a black man extraordinary. Goods and services commanded a premium in the life of the frontier. Free Frank's career shows what an exceptional black man, though working against great odds, could accomplish through industry, acumen, and aggressiveness. His story suggests a great deal about business activity and legal practices, as well as racial conditions, on the frontier. Juliet Walker has performed a task of historical detection in recreating the life of Free Frank from family traditions, limited personal papers, public documents, and secondary sources. In doing so, she has added a significant chapter to the history of Afro-Americans. - Back cover.

University of North Carolina Press,. .

Despite almost four centuries of black independent self-help enterprises, the agency of African Americans in attempting to forge their own economic liberation through business activities and entrepreneurship has remained noticeably absent from the historical record. This work is the only source that provides a detailed study of the continuity, diversity, and multiplicity of independent self-help economic activities among African Americans. This new, updated edition divides the original work into two volumes. The first volume covers African American business history through the end of the Civil War and features the first comprehensive account of black business during the Civil War. By emphasizing the African origins of black business practices and highlighting the contributions of black women, enslaved and free, the author casts aside the long-held assumption that a "lack of a business tradition" is responsible for the failure of African Americans to establish successful, large-scale enterprises. The second volume covers the era spanning from the end of the Civil War to the twenty-first century.