the world according to fannie davis by bridgett m davis

'A rich and heartwarming memoir honors a remarkable mother.We need more stories like Fannie's-the triumph and good life of a lucky black woman in a deeply corrupt world.'―New York Times Book Review 'Davis's heartwarming memoir honors her remarkable mother, who made a good life for her family in the '60s and '70s.'―New York Times, Editor's Choice Blending memoir and social history, recounts her mother's extraordinary story alongside the larger context of Motor City's rise and fall.'―Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

'The World According to Fannie Davis is a daughter's gesture of loving defiance, an act of reclamation, an absorbing portrait of her mother in full. This is a memoir that, while revealing the secrets, triumphs and tragedies of one unique family, also shines a light on underrepresented aspects of the American experience.

The World According to Fanny Davis is a moving and unforgettable memoir of an extraordinary parent, living in a unique time and place, as seen through the eyes of an admiring yet clear-sighted daughter. Seamlessly weaving together personal history, memoir, interviews and cultural study, The World According to Fanny Davis illuminates the life and life-choices of one unforgettable and unconventional woman, while opening a rare and invaluable window on The Numbers – how it worked, and its significance as a means of African-American economic empowerment, not just for one family but in the culture at large, and offering a rare, insider, African-American perspective on Detroit in its heyday.

She felt the time had come to share her story with the larger world. Bridgett’s mom, Fannie Mai Drumwright Davis Robinson, was a numbers runner, one of only two women in Detroit to successfully run her own Numbers business this is a story that has never been told.Īs a successful adult, Bridgett found herself still burdened by the weight of that family secret: it meant she could never tell the truth about how extraordinary her mother actually was, that she couldn’t fully answer her children’s questions, or publicly celebrate the fact that her mother, in an era when there were almost no opportunities for African-American women, “made a way out of no way” and managed to not only be a stay-at-home mom to her five children, but ensure that Bridgett got the education and the financial security to grow up to be a journalist, a teacher, a writer and a filmmaker–and a homeowner. The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life in the Detroit Numbers is Bridgett Davis’ story of growing up in Detroit in the 1960s and 70s while keeping a huge family secret: the fact that the business her mom ran – the one that brought the family out of poverty and into the middle class – was illegal.

The world according to fannie davis by bridgett m davis