Before she dressed a First Lady, she stitched her own freedom.
Seventy years after her groundbreaking memoir first challenged America’s understanding of slavery, a preacher discovers a forgotten copy tucked away in a dusty attic during the burgeoning Harlem Renaissance.
Within its fading pages emerges the extraordinary voice of a woman whose story history nearly erased.
LIZZY reimagines the remarkable life of Madame Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley—a woman born into slavery whose extraordinary gift for dressmaking carried her from bondage to the White House. As the official dressmaker and trusted confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, Keckley entered the intimate corridors of power while the nation itself was being torn apart by Civil War.
But this is more than the story of an exceptional couturière. It is the story of a Black woman who transformed artistry into agency, elegance into resistance, and craftsmanship into liberation. A woman who purchased her own freedom, built one of Washington’s most sought-after fashion houses, and refused to surrender her voice to the machinery of history.
Richly imagined and deeply rooted in the historical record, LIZZY restores Elizabeth Keckley to her rightful place—not merely as the woman who dressed the White House, but as a visionary entrepreneur, abolitionist, author, and cultural architect whose life was woven into the very fabric of a nation in transformation.
AMERICA'S FIRST COUTURIÈRE
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
"Nuyda conducts readers’ attention with a maestro’s precision, contrasting gravity and levity in a delicate, honest balance. With genuine characters and undeniable history, Nuyda’s retelling of Elizabeth Keckley’s story shimmers like the finest silk, demanding attention elegantly and proving wholly worthy of it."
~Tassneem Abdulwahab, Sundress Publications, 2/28/26
To read the entire review, click HERE.
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