In a story that is both personal and historical, author Fatima Shaik, takes us on a journey that begins with the rescue of the library of ledgers, journals and papers by her father in the 1950s to the discovery that he had come to possess the documents that told the story of one of the most important institutions both for jazz and mutual aid for blacks in New Orleans—Economy Hall.
With records covering nearly a century starting in 1836, Fatima, while on a visit home to New Orleans in 1997—saw the journals sitting in a cabinet and decided to put them in chronological order on the dining table.
From that time on, Fatima would begin to construct a story that few of us had heard about. In her book, Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood, Fatima shines a light on the multiracial character of New Orleans, its Creole identity and a thriving Black community that shaped the social, political and economic character of a city and, by extension, the United States.
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