Sign-In
Cart
Dangerous, Black and Notorious: America's First Self Made Female Millionaire
Paperback
Series: History
Biographies GeneralBlack American History
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
Publisher: Woody Clermont Book Publications
Published: Sep 20 2025
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.44
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Mary Ellen Pleasant's story is one of the most extraordinary, and overlooked, in American history. Born in the early nineteenth century, she rose from obscurity to become a millionaire entrepreneur, an abolitionist mastermind, and the woman history now calls the Mother of Civil Rights in California.
In the gold-dusted streets of San Francisco, Pleasant built an empire of laundries, boarding houses, and real estate, transforming domestic labor into financial power. But her wealth was never just for herself. She sheltered fugitives, funded escape routes, sued streetcar companies for segregation, and, by her own account, gave John Brown tens of thousands of dollars to strike at the heart of slavery.
This book traces her journey through triumph and betrayal, her stewardship of the Bell mansion, and the scandals that sought to tarnish her name.
Mary Ellen Pleasant did not wait for permission to rise, she built her own Black Wall Street before the name ever existed. Her legacy is wealth as resistance, law as weapon, audacity as survival.
For readers of Black history, women's history, and true stories of resistance, this is the definitive narrative of a woman who truly is legend.
Also from
Clermont, Woody
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover