Description: Hugh Pearson grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, encouraged by his parents to believe nothing was beyond his reach. If he needed further inspiration, he could look to his uncle, Dr. Joseph Griffin. Although Griffin had stayed in the Deep South, he had managed to become a pillar of his community at a time when blacks -- then called Negroes -- rarely prospered, donating millions to black institutions and building the largest private hospital for Afro-Americans in the state of Georgia. Uncle Joe's success epitomized the importance of advancement through hard work and middle-class leadership of the black community.

Years later, Pearson embarked on a journey to learn more about his family history. What he uncovered are cold hard truths about the moral complexities of success and power in a racist society. His uncle's fortune was built partly on back-door abortions, the treatment of venereal disease for Caucasian men too embarrassed to seek help from their regular doctor, and, most disturbing of all, the coerced donation of property from many patients when they couldn't afford to pay their medical bills. With the unblinking honesty that earned him universal acclaim for his critique of the Black Panthers, The Shadow of the Panther, Pearson brings to light the agonizing ambiguities of the rise of the black middle class and restores the true legacy of a painful, often overlooked, always oversimplified part of the Afro-American experience.

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