Book

Carter, Stephen L., 1954- author.

Invisible : the forgotten story of the black woman lawyer who took down America's most powerful mobster / Stephen L. Carter.

First edition.

New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2018.

©2018

xviii, 364 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

"She was brilliant, ambitious, and unafraid to break barriers. As the only member of a squad of twenty high-powered lawyers who was not a white male, she devised the strategy that in the 1930s sent Mafia chieftain Lucky Luciano to prison. She achieved so much--but what could she have accomplished if not for barriers of race and gender?..."--back cover.

"She was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in the New York of the 1930s--and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted. When special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey selected twenty lawyers to help him clean up the city's underworld, she was the only member of his team who was not a white male. Eunice Hunton Carter, Stephen Carter's grandmother, was raised in a world of stultifying expectations about race and gender, yet by the 1940s her professional and political successes had made her one of the most famous black women in America. But her triumphs were shadowed by prejudice and tragedy. Greatly complicating her rise was her difficult relationship with her younger brother, Alphaeus, an avowed Communist who--together with his friend Dashiell Hammett--would go to prison during the McCarthy era. Yet she remained unbowed. Moving, haunting, and as fast paced as a novel, [this book] tells the true story of a woman who often found her path blocked by the social and political expectations of her time. But Eunice Carter never accepted defeat, and thanks to her grandson's remarkable book, her long-forgotten story is once again visible."--Dust jacket.

Pt. I. The inheritance. The burning -- The legacy -- The student -- The Czarina -- The escape -- The candidate -- The commission -- The prosecutor -- The premise -- The raiders -- The preparation -- The trial -- The visitor -- The politco -- pt. II. Passion. The celebrity -- The decision -- The file -- The connections -- The defeat -- The breakup -- The reinvention -- The siblings.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Carter, Eunice Hunton.

Carter, Stephen L., 1954- -- Family.

African American women lawyers -- Biography.

African American authors -- Biography.

African American families -- Biography.

Biographies.

Biography.

2017050088

9781250121974

1250121973

1010622061

8

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2079386