Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and author Cheryl McKissack Daniel for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

I had never heard of the McKissack family, despite having lived just outside of New York City for the first 39 years of my life. In the last 30 or so years, they have been behind many large construction projects in and around the City. The Black Family Who Built America sheds light on the family history that brought this family to a place of prominence.

Moses McKissack was the clan elder who was brought to the shores of North Carolina in the slave trade from Africa. Cheryl McKissack-Daniel, the author, recounts the stories told in her family over the years. It’s a bit of a mystery as to how he ended up a slave, since their history was traced back to tribes that normally weren’t slaves themselves but slave traders. She details how he came to be owned by a builder named McKissack, who treated his slaves better than most.

The story goes back and forth between the history of the family and what Cheryl experiences as the head of McKissack & McKissack in New York City. I would have preferred more of the history and less of the details of Cheryl’s experiences as an executive of a construction firm. I get it, she’s a woman and a minority in a business that is hostile to both groups, especially when it comes to the higher-ups in that business. It just seemed like she had some of the family history and then added her own story to that brief history. I was more interested in the problems the family had in the post-Reconstruction South. The fact that the company started by Moses McKissack has not only lasted this long but thrived seems to be contrary to the usual narrative. I would have liked more details on how they did it.

It seems the details of what went on were not passed down through the family. Cheryl interviewed her mother, who is still alive, for some parts of the story. Her father, who was head of McKissack & McKissack until he passed away when Cheryl had just graduated from college, apparently did not pass those stories down. Cheryl does recount a memory of a cross being burned on the lawn of a close family friend the night they had all gathered to celebrate one of the kids’ birthdays. However, the prejudice that they experienced and the battles they fought before Cheryl’s time have to be assumed. The scope of projects her family was involved with is impressive, yet I had never heard about them until now.

Cheryl’s story in and of itself is interesting. I can’t imagine the battles she fought as a woman against men who thought she was just a “DEI hire” for construction jobs, rather than a capable builder in her own right. She shows how networking in the business and political community helped her a great deal, and she capitalizes on every opening she’s given. As she’s writing about this, she uses a lot of terms I didn’t recognize, and at times I found it difficult to follow along. There were so many different names thrown at me as she tried to get her firm to be a part of major projects and enhance their reputations. I would say she managed the company very well and should be proud of her legacy.

However, I would have liked more of the history of what the family went through before her era. It’s a shame those stories seem to be lost to time. The Black Family Who Built America is a good book that gives insight into the battles still being faced by minority and female-owned companies, even in our modern society.