THE BLACK FAMILY WHO BUILT AMERICA is written by Cheryl McKissack Daniel, the award-winning president and CEO of McKissack & McKissack. Her family's company is America's oldest minority-owned construction firm and she shares the history of its development, founding, and works throughout the twentieth century until today. However, unlike Invisible Generals or The Warmth of Other Suns, THE BLACK FAMILY WHO BUILT AMERICA is written in a rather dense style, making it difficult to fully appreciate the many anecdotes about "projects like the Morris Memorial Building, Capers C.M.E. Church, John F. Kennedy International Airport, and Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field."

Cheryl McKissack Daniel strives to be inspiring, noting, for example, "Without any hesitation, I said, 'McKissack will do it!' That became my motto. If I heard anything that needed to be done, I'd say, 'we'll do it!' It didn't matter whether we had any idea how to do it or not. I had a talented staff; I knew we could figure it out." The multi-generation legacy is quite remarkable and readers can further appreciate the design talent described by Cheryl's twin in this video hosted by CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/04/07/how-i-built-a-company-from-1000-in-savings-to-bringing-in-25myear.html

An inspirational read that mixes the history of the McKissack family with the author's journey through the business world. I was not familiar with the family construction business but now realize that like the family it spread way beyond its Tennessee origins. It's a fascinating story of determination. The author doesn't spare herself as she details her own issues as well as how she fought to get where she is today. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. A very good read

Cheryl McKissack tells the story of her family business starting with her Great-Great Grandfather Moses who traveled during the Middle Passage to North Carolina. When he was freed slave he started a business called McKissack Contractor which was rare because most people did not hire black contractors during the recession. His two son inherited his business which is now McKissack McKissack. After they both died Cheryl's mother became the CEO and it eventually passed on to Cheryl. This company has been threatened with hard time several time throughout the years but it is still going strong. It has built a lot of the Churches in Memphis and many National Historical Sites. Through it all this is a story of how a black construction company endured both sexism and racism to be one of the prominent African America businesses in the country. Cheryl tell her story like she is sitting with you one on one recalling her family history along with the her own. We learn about her parents and her marriages. We learn how business is run in New York and how she has met all the movers and shakers in industry. She has learn the in and outs of how to be successful in New York. The only downside I can say is I wish she would elaborate more on the topics she discussed and she seemed to jump around from topic to topic. Overall, I found this to be very interesting memoir of her family.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing an ARC of this title.

The publisher offered this book to me and I'm so grateful they did. I may have missed it otherwise. This book was so full of anecdotes and stories. I found several things to look up and research a bit more and brought my attention to. I missed a really comprehensive story of the McKissack family, though. I feel like this book had excellent intentions and is an extremely interesting subject, but needed cohesiveness and direction.

4 stars

I always appreciate learning about American Black families from the family members themselves-especially if they share the truth of their legacy flaws and all. In this case, I had not heard about Tennessean builders, the McKissack Family. The more I learned about them, the more I thought, "I am glad this is a book, but this could easily become a movie." And then I realized that the McKissack family share many attributes with the Dupree family from "Beyond the Gates" on CBS. As a fan of the soap, I would love for Cheryl McKissack Daniel to cameo on the show as a rival, but I digress. All told, if you are interested in American history, American Black history, construction in America and more, this book is for you. I would also recommend this book for multigenerational reading groups.

Thoughts

Available 08/12/2025

The is the story of the Mckissack family business Mckissack and Mckissack written by the current CEO Cheryl Mckissack Daniel. Moses Mckissack was an enslaved man in North Carolina who worked in construction. There he ran his own crew. His kids started learning the trade as well. And the son of the man who enslaved him got married so one of his children was given to him and that is how the Mckissacks ended up in Tennessee.

After the Emancipation Proclamation the Mckissacks continued to work construction in Pulaski, TN which is close to Nashville. And they eventually became a respected firm in Middle TN and the south for architecture and construction.

Being from Nashville I was so excited when they sent me this widget. Sadly, I didn't know about the Mckissack family but all of the places she talked about I knew. They did a lot of work for MeHarry and Fisk and those are well known places here. One of the schools they built I actually took the pre-test for my GED at.

So, I really enjoyed learning the history and being familiar with the places. Just learning the company's history as well. The company is 200 years old and has built a lot of government buildings. It is said that by the 1970s they had built around 3000s buildings, 2000 of those were churches for Black communities in the south.

I enjoyed her stories of growing up and what it was like in Nashville. And her stories of her dad and other family members. Once she gets past her college experience it really focuses on the business and some of it is really particular and I am not sure it will appeal to everyone. However, I work in the construction industry so I found it interesting.

I will say if you have some trauma with growing up in poverty or just low-income there might be some comments in here that feel offensive. I say this as someone who did and there were a couple of things that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. But she grew up wealthy and it is evident and that's okay, in fact it is great. But I just wanted to put that out there so people aren't caught off guard.

Thanks to Netgalley and Atria books for this eARC

The author successfully described the history of her family’s construction business. She did not shy away from including her company’s problems at breaking into the white male dominated construction industry. This book provided insight into the difficulties and challenges a black female had to overcome to stay in business. It’s a well-written and enlightening story worth your time.

This book speaks a lot of the history of McKissack, but it does for the majority of the time follow Cherly, her story, of the struggles she had to go through with the business and having to learn first hand how to grow from mistakes as well as personal stories was intriguing. She was given a family business where she had to be the one to make sure it grew or that family legacy ended with her. I loved the chapters where she spoke of her personal experiences whether it’s having to survive an all white school or smoking with her mom. Her personality really shines through in those chapters, she is funny and brings the stories to life. The more technical sides when she speaks of the family business at times were not as engaging there were a lot of names of other business owners and people in that world that it got to be too much at time. I had to go back to make sure I was getting the names and their business right. One thing that is sadly still so prevalent today that she spoke of was the treatment of minorities, in this case, African Americans, in modern day she had to fight to continue doing business because of some rule invented to keep minorities from advancing much like what previous generations had to go through to build this business. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in modern days or the past it always seems POCs have to fighter harder to advance in society. This story though brought to light the fight the McKissacks put up to survive and build their empire. Thank you Atria Books for the arc as well as NetGalley.

I received a free copy of, The Black Family Who Built America, by Cheryl McKissack Daniel, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The McKissack family has come a long way, they started out as slaves, and ending up famous architects. I have never heard of this family before. This book is about a family rise from adversity.

This was an impactful and really informative and interesting read. Heart wrenching too at times.

I’m a bit at a loss for words. This book was equal parts informative and emotional. I saw myself smiling, feeling anger, feeling relief, and overall being very invested.

To be able to read a story from the perspective of the grand daughter of the first African American licensed architects in the state of Tennessee is incredible. I had no idea of the story behind the name of this company. Cheryl McKissack Daniel, the granddaughter, is now the current president and CEO.

It was frustrating to learn about all the roadblocks faced, whether through direct attacks or other, this was an uphill battle. I was heartbroken learning about the health issues family members faced and learning about the heavier subjects in this book. I can’t stop thinking about it.

If you are wanting to learn more about Black history, I heavily recommend this read.

Thank you Atria books and Net Galley for this ARC. This was an honor to be able to read early. I appreciate the opportunity to leave honest feedback voluntarily.

This was a very interesting and insightful novel. This novel delivers the historical background of a family and the journey to rise to the national firm it is today. I found the behind the scenes information of contracts and construction of buildings fascinating knowing very little about the industry. It was a quick read that held my attention.

Cheryl McKissack Daniel’s The Black Family Who Built America tells the powerful story of the McKissack family, who rose from slavery to lead the country’s oldest Black-owned architecture firm. Spanning five generations, the book follows their climb from hardship to shaping some of America’s most iconic buildings.

Daniel’s writing is clear and heartfelt, blending family stories with history. The McKissacks’ resilience stands out, showing the strength and ambition it took to succeed against the odds. While some details are brief due to the book’s huge scope, the story is both inspiring and eye-opening.

If you want a short, moving read about Black achievement and family legacy in America, this one’s worth your time.

4.5/5