Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind
the Civil Rights Movement
By Tanisha C. Ford
An engrossing social history of the unsinkable Mollie Moon, a Harlem socialite and Civil Rights
philanthropist extraordinaire.
Our Secret Society brilliantly illuminates a highly significant aspect of the Civil Rights Movement that has
been long overlooked: the powerhouse fundraising effort that supported the movement – the
luncheons, galas, card parties, and traveling exhibitions attended by middle-class and working-class
Black families, the Negro press, and titans of industry, including Winthrop Rockefeller.
No one knew this better than Mollie Moon. Her experiences living abroad in Moscow and Berlin
in the 1930’s had strengthened Mollie’s resolve to return home and fight against Jim Crow segregation
in the United States. With her husband, Henry Lee Moon, the longtime publicist for the NAACP, Mollie
became half of one of the most influential couples of the civil rights era. Vivacious and intellectually
curious, Mollie frequently hosted political salons attended by guests including Langston Hughes, Paul
Robeson, and Lorraine Hansberry. As the president of the National Urban League Guild, the fundraising
arm of the National Urban League, Mollie reigned over the glittering Beaux Arts Ball for fifty years. It
was the premiere, interracial social event of New York society – a glamorous affair rivaling today’s Met
Gala. Mollie raised millions to fund grassroots activists battling for economic justice and racial equality.
Historian and cultural critic Tanisha C. Ford brings Mollie into focus as never before, charting her
rise from Jim Crow Mississippi to civic leader and doyenne of Manhattan, through extensive research,
never before revealed letters, and dozens of interviews, including with Mollie’s daughter and namesake.
Our Secret Society is both a searing portrait of a remarkable period in America and a strategic economic
blueprint today’s activists can emulate.
Tunisha C. Ford is a historian and cultural critic whose work centers on the experiences of Black women.
She is a professor of history and biography and memoir at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author
of a number of books including the Global Politics of Soul which won the 2016 Liberty Legacy Foundation
award for the best book on civil rights history from the Organization of American Historians. In addition
to her academic writing, Tanisha has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, TIME magazine, Elle,
and Harper’s Bazaar. She was named one of the hundred most influential African Americans by The
Root. She lives in Harlem.