A review of Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster, a book about the life of alumna Eunice Carter ’32, was published in News 95.5.
The story had been floating around in author Stephen Carter’s head for a long time.
A black woman born in Atlanta at the turn of the century who went off to Smith College and Fordham University law school. She was later appointed the first black woman assistant district attorney in New York for a team that would take down Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the Italian-born mobster considered to be the father of organized crime.
That woman, Eunice Hunton Carter, was Stephen Carter’s grandmother. As a child, he knew very little about her illustrious career and everything about her imposing presence.
“When she was alive she was this huge intimidating figure in my life and the lives of my four siblings who was always correcting our grammar or our use of the wrong fork at the dinner table. When she died I began to hear these stories,” said Carter.
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“It is a story I know I can never live up to. Whatever I may do in life – which is fine – I am never going to be the kind of figure she was,” Carter said. “It is nice to look back and look at these really great things. It makes me hopeful about the future.”