With his book The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago: Anthony Overton and the Building of a Financial Empire, Robert Weems lifts the veil on a significant figure in Chicago's Black business community during the first half of the twentieth century. Though Overton was well known in his time—the first businessman to win the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP and subject of an obituary in the Journal of Negro History when he died—his life could still be shrouded in mystery. Thankfully, this time Overton's story will be the more accurate version, which does not lessen his contributions in the slightest. Instead, we see the efforts of a devout, frugal man who enjoyed business and sought to improve his community and provide for his family. Along the way, he achieved great success. It is enough, and the story is fascinating to read.

Born the son of a Black business owner and politician in Monroe, Louisiana, Overton moved to Kansas with his family as a teenager. As an adult he moved to Oklahoma and back to Kansas and Missouri, built a family, and fathered four children. It was in Missouri that he started Overton Hygienic Manufacturing Company, with its signature High-Brown Face Powder that was a mainstay of the company for decades. At this same time, he became connected to the National Negro Business League and Booker T. Washington. Overton was a devout disciple and modeled his career after Washington's precepts. In 1911, he moved his family to Chicago, and it was there that he became a national business success. Within twenty years, he would expand the Overton Hygienic Manufacturing Company, build the first Black national bank (Douglass National Bank), found a life insurance company (Victory Life Insurance, the first Black insurance firm licensed to operate in New York State), and found a newspaper (the Chicago Bee), among other endeavors. By 1931, he had truly earned the title of “the merchant prince of Black Chicago.” Though the Great Depression would see the end of his bank, his forced ouster from Victory Life, and a reduction in his business reputation, Overton would not end his life in disgrace but continue to operate a portion of his portfolio until his death.

Weems's greatest contribution in this book is to pierce the mystery surrounding Overton's early life and bring the facts to light. Overton's past had been embellished over the years, partly by Overton himself and then by others, to the point that noted obituaries about him, such as in the Journal of Negro History (July 1947), and his biography in John N. Ingham and Lynne B. Feldman's African American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary (1994) include incorrect information. Overton sought to portray himself as a “Renaissance man” in his youth. Weems has painstakingly and meticulously researched these areas of Overton's life to give us the accurate story. Embellishments include Overton's supposed law degree and his political service as treasurer in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma, both disproved by Weems. However, as Weems makes so clear, the sad part is that these embellishments are not necessary, as Overton's story is sufficiently riveting without them. Eliminating this clouded history does nothing to lessen the magnitude of Overton's accomplishments. A vital aspect of Weems's research into the reality of Overton's life is the case of his ownership and oversight of two publications, Half-Century Magazine and the Chicago Bee, both of which served as means by which Overton promoted his beauty products. He was not listed as the publisher of either, but Weems demonstrates how Overton controlled both the business and editorial aspects.

Another noted contribution of Weems's research is showing Overton's elevation of women in business. Overton's wife, Clara, was a partner in the early phases of Overton Hygienic. Sadly, she passed away within a year of his relocation to Chicago and did not see his tremendous success. Overton never remarried. As noted before, neither Half-Century Magazine nor the Chicago Bee listed Overton as the publisher, though Weems makes a case that disputes this; both, however, were led by women: Katherine Williams-Irwin and Olivia Diggs. At the Bee, essentially every high-ranking position was held by a woman. Overton Hygienic had a store in 1915 entirely staffed by women, and women held other positions of authority throughout the company. They were often the face of Overton Hygienic. Given that his competitors were Madame C. J. Walker and Annie Turnbo Malone, it made good business sense to have women at the front of his company, but the fact this was true in all of his endeavors shows an attitude not common during this period.

Reading of the collapse of Douglass National Bank and Victory Life Insurance highlights another of Weems's contributions. Weems places both in the spirit of the times while being open about Overton's management errors. Weems describes how the balance sheets of both organizations were decimated by the loss of property values during the Depression, reminiscent of Mehrsa Baradaran's The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap (2017), in which the author explains how the inherent gap of value between Black-owned and White-owned real estate penalized all Black banks. At the same time, Overton overextended his organizations to build faster and bigger, uplifted the community as much as possible, and occasionally commingled the funds of the businesses with his personal wealth. In this sense, he can be grouped with Jesse Binga and Heman Perry. A study is waiting to be written comparing these overambitious entrepreneurs, those with the dreams of Icarus, with the more conservative ones such as Alonzo Herndon.

Overall, The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago clears the air around one of Black America's most successful businessmen and his time. With solid scholarship locating the facts behind the myth, the book is a fascinating read.