Black was born in Cumberland, Maryland, into a wealthy family who claimed they could trace their lineage back to the American Revolution.

[3] Black got his start in banking at the age of eighteen as a clerk with the Fidelity Trust and Deposit Company, eventually becoming president in 1926.

In 1929, Black traveled from London to the Cape of Good Hope and returned in his new Wright Whirlwind powered Fokker "Maryland Free State".

His Fokker aircraft crashed at DumDum airport, and then was destroyed at Calcutta, India by a cyclone, though the crew escaped injury.

An American Trimotor pilot noted that when he asked why his aircraft was not flying level on a flight to Cleveland, he was pointed to a failed motor on the wing.

[16] In February 1930, Black commissioned a Fokker VIIb trimotor aircraft G-AADZ "The Maryland Free State" to fly from London to Tokyo to Java.

On August 18, 1930, while en route from the New York Yacht Club to Baltimore, Black fell to his death off the back of the Sabalo off the coast of New Jersey.

[19] His loss prompted an all-out air-sea search by four amphibious airplanes, the Coast Guard and the Zeppelin USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) called upon by Black's personal friend, New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.

[20][21] Black's newspaper staff worked diligently to disguise his guest, Mrs. J. Walter Lord, as an elderly cousin to avoid scandal.