Freedom is often described. Independence is built. For more than half a century, Freeman Henry Morris Murray lived in plain sight while reshaping Black American life from the inside out. A polymath, publisher, entrepreneur, art historian, humanitarian, and architect of Black economic autonomy, Murray quietly built systems that rendered Jim Crow increasingly ineffective-without spectacle, permission, or apology. The Business of Independence restores Murray to his rightful place in American and Black history. Drawing from rare archival materials, family-held documents, newspapers, correspondence, and original research, this authoritative biography reveals how Murray engineered freedom through discipline, family collaboration, and institutional design. From his formative years in Alexandria, Virginia-where he lived for sixty-four years and quietly operated safe houses connected to a post-Civil War Underground Railroad-to his pivotal role in shaping Washington, DC's famed Black Broadway, Murray constructed businesses, printing presses, cultural institutions, and intellectual networks that created jobs, preserved Black narratives, and fostered self-governance during the height of segregation. This book challenges the notion that resistance must be loud to be effective. Murray's life demonstrates that independence, when practiced as a system rather than a slogan, can endure neglect, outlast injustice, and reshape history without recognition. Meticulously researched and written in the spirit of authoritative narrative biography, The Business of Independence is essential reading for anyone interested in Black history, American history, entrepreneurship under oppression, and the unseen builders who made freedom livable long before it was acknowledged.