As off-springs of people who three hundred years ago were savages in Africa, and as decendents of people who were in the United States as slaves for two hundred forty-four years; the American Colored people of today, less than sixty years from slavery, own and operate seventy-two Banks. These Banks carry a capital of about two million five hundred thousand dollars and do an annual business of about thirty-five million dollars. (Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, page 367).
This marvelous and successful commercial plunge is the most dazzling banking achievement, as far as history records, ever made in the world in the same length of time, by a like group of people placed under the same kind of circumstances. In fact, this most heavily handicapped business broad-jump has been made with such sudden rapidity, length of leap and sure-footed landing that financial judges and onlookers of all races are still dizzy from trying to measure the distance and solve how it was covered.
Banking critics throughout the country seem to agree in estimating E. C. Brown, President of Brown and Stevens Bank, Phila., Pa., and Brown Savings & Banking Co., Norfolk, Va., as the foremost Colored banking financier of today in America. Aside from having many heavy real estate holdings in numerous Southern and Northern cities, he is founder and president of the Quality Amusement Corporation that owns and operates the Lafayette Theater in New York, the Dunbar Theater, in Phila., Pa., and theaters either under construction or contemplation in several other large cities.
According to an article that appeared on August 13, 1920 in the Dayton Forum, a Negro paper published by J. H. Rives, Dayton, Ohio, the first Colored bank in the United States to report resources of over one million dollars is the Solvent Savings Bank & Trust Co. of Memphis, Tenn. Its cashier, B. M. Roddy stated that the bank does business with twenty-five thousand people. These facts together with a fuller and more detailed notification were sent to the State Commission on June 30th of that year. Other Colored banks that separately had resources of over nine hundred thousand dollars and were expected to reach the million dollar mark by the end of that year were the Brown Savings & Banking Co., Norfolk, Va., and the Wage Earners Savings Bank in Savannah, Ga. The St. Lukes Bank, Richmond, Va., the only institution of its kind founded and presided over by a Colored woman, Mrs. Maggie L. Walker, has resources of over five hundred thousand dollars. Other banks that have gone over the half million dollar mark in resources are, The Mechanics Bank, Richmond, Va., The Mutual Savings Bank, Portsmouth, Va., and the Tide Water Bank, Norfolk, Va. Twenty-five Colored banks throughout the country each have over two hundred fifty thousand dollars in resources. Colored people have one national bank, not so long established in Chicago, Ill., The Doughlass National Bank of which P. W. Chavers is president. The Brown & Stevens Bank, Phila., Pa., and the Binga State Bank, Chicago, Ill., have both reached the million dollar mark in resources. The last named bank, of which Jesse Binga is founder and president, has a capital and surplus of one hundred twenty thousand dollars.
The names in the following list have been handed to the writer as being just a few from among many such Colored banks in the United States that are laid on sound foundations, efficiently conducted and fully recognized for their business integrity, steady financial growth and broadening moral influences.
| Banks | Presidents |
| C. H. Anderson Co., Bankers, Jacksonville, Fla. | C. H. Anderson |
| Atlanta State Savings Bank, Atlanta, Ga., | J. A. Ross |
| Auburn Savings Corporation, Atlanta, Ga., | B. J. Davis |
| Central State Bank, Gary, Ind., | W. C. Hueston |
| Citizens State Banking Co., New Orleans, La., | J. H. Lowery |
| Citizens & Southern Banking Co., Phila., Pa., | R. R. Smith, Sr. |
| Charleston Mutual Savings Bank, | (not informed) |
| Crawford Bank, Boston, Mass., | David Crawford |
| Crown Savings Bank, Newport News, Va., | (not informed) |
| {120}Farmers & Merchants Bank, Boley, Okla., | D. J. Turner |
| Farmers Improvement Bank, Waco, Texas, | R. L. Smith |
| Fraternal Bank & Trust Co., Forth Worth, Texas, | Thomas Mason |
| Mechanics Savings Bank, Richmond, Va., | John Mitchell, Jr. |
| Mechanics & Farmers Bank, Durham, N. C., | W. G. Pearson |
| Mound Bayou State Bank, Mound Bayou, Miss., | D. A. Carr. |
| Peoples Federation Bank, Charleston, S. C., | W. H. Johnson |
| One Cent Savings Bank, Nashville, Tenn., | R. H. Boyd |
| Penny Savings & Loan and Investment Co., Augusta, Ga., | R. S. Williams. |
| Northcross & Curtis Bank, Detroit, Mich., | Dr. Northcross. |
| Savannah Savings & R. E. Corp’n, Savannah, Ga., | W. S. Scott. |
| Industrial Savings Bank, Washington, D.C., | J. W. Lewis. |
| Fraternal Savings Bank, Memphis, Tenn., | J. J. Scott. |
| Tide Water Bank & Trust Co., Norfolk, Va., | P. B. Young |
| Steel City Bank, Pittsburgh, Pa., | (not informed) |
| Tuskegee Institute Savings Bank, Tuskegee, Ala., | Warren Logan. |
| Modern Savings & Trust Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., | J. H. Phillips |
“The Allied Bankers’ Corporation will serve as a clearing house for banks, life and fire insurances companies, manufacturing companies and for business generally. The enterprise is to be owned by and operated wholly in the interest of and for the economic development of the Race.” This quotation is extracted from an article that appeared in the December 11, 1920 issue of the Chicago Defender. In speaking of this movement, the article further stated that a group of Colored bankers and business men were combining in forming and having incorporated a one million dollar concern to be known as the Allied Bankers and Industrial Corporation.
“Application for charter has already been made by the following bankers and business men: L. E. Williams, president Wage Earners’ Savings Bank, Savannah, Ga.; Harry E. Pace, formerly secretary-treasurer Standard Life Insurance Company, now president of Pace Phonograph company, New York City; E. C. Brown, president of Brown & Stevens, bankers, Philadelphia, Pa., and president Quality Amusement Corporation; John E. Nail, of Nail & Parker, real estate dealers, New York City; J. S. Jones, secretary-treasurer Tidewater Bank and Trust Company, Norfolk, Va.; Charles Banks, Mound Bayou, Miss., and Emmett J. Scott, formerly assistant to Secretary of War Baker and now secretary-treasurer of Howard University.”
WITHIN the past twenty years Colored real estate owners and brokers throughout the country have made real estate deals running up into millions of dollars. Some of the heaviest transactions have been made by Nail & Parker, New York City, Watt Terry, Brocton, Mass., and New York City, the late P. A. Payton, New York City, A. F. Herndon, Atlanta, Ga., R. L. Smith, Waco, Texas, Brown & Stevens, Phila., Pa., Jesse Binga, Chicago, Ill., M. L. Harris, Washington, D.C., H. M. Burkett, Baltimore, Md., W. Lewis, C. Tolson, Baltimore, Md., R. H. Watterford, Gary, Ind., J. T. Jackson, Germantown, Pa., S. J. Jones, Phila., Pa., H. Rudduth, Cincinnati, Ohio, Isadore Martin, Phila., Pa., J. L. Slaughter & Co., Faulkner & Cook Co., Anderson & Terrell Co., Harvey Watkins Co., Chicago, Ill., McKinley, Walker and DeVeille, Washington, D.C., P. H. Sykes, Phila., Pa.
According to an article that appeared on page 53 in the May 1920 issue of The Crisis, Nail & Parker, New York real estate brokers, handle over a million dollars yearly in rentals and commissions. During the year 1919 Colored people purchased over four million dollars worth of property in the Harlem section of New York City. But what is said to have been the largest real estate transaction ever made in the United States at one time by Colored people was when six large modern De Luxe Elevator Apartments, that had been constructed on West 141st and 142nd Street, New York City at a cost of one million five hundred thousand dollars, were purchased by an organized group of Negro business men. (Ref. Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, page 3).
Through his personal research work in the following cities, the writer has been able to uncover from among the many thousands of Colored business people throughout America, the following unusually successful business Colored men and women each reputed able to write his or her personal check for twenty-five thousand dollars; nearly all of them have saved a fortune of fifty thousand dollars; a large number of them have reached the one hundred thousand dollar mark; numbers of them have two hundred fifty thousand dollars to their credits; many of them count their wealth up to five hundred thousand dollars and quite a few of them own over a million dollars in cash and property. But in reading this list let the readers say, as the Queen of Sheba said when she paid a visit to King Solomon and viewed his wealthy kingdom, “The half has not been told.” Because the author would remind the reader that all over the United States there are just as successful and wealthy Colored business men and women whose names do not appear in this list simply because he was unable to locate such names during his much handicapped research work.
ONE of the chief living conditions surrounding the American Colored people that always stood as a puzzled question to the masses of American white people was; how did Negroes (considering the low cheating wages, until the World War, they had always received for their work and the usually double prices they were made to pay in buying clothes, furniture, homes, etc.) manage to keep up decent living expenses, save money and at the same time nourishingly care for their sick and properly bury their dead? It has never been understood why so few Colored people have been seen as beggars, and paupers holding up every other street corner or silently filling the potter fields; while these same places have always been over-crowded with dependent white people, who in their prosperous life times had received the highest paid wages and given the lowest bargain sales. When it is remembered that there is over ninety million Caucasians in the United States against twelve million Negroes, even then the percentage of whites in such places is much larger than that of the blacks. And from the fact that in nearly every large city in America there are to be found white men and women who own homes and thousands of dollars and still beg on street corners proves that begging is easier and comes more natural to white than to Colored people, because no instance has ever been heard of a Negro street begging when owning a home or money in a bank.
Now the facts that answer the puzzled question, as to how Negroes have always been able to “get along” generally under all circumstances, are the insurance companies, fraternal orders and beneficial societies founded and operated by Colored people in America. There is nothing in the world (including death) that the average Colored people dread more than to face downright poverty, need and beggary, and to prevent such misfortunes they become full members in these organizations even from childhood. For this reason insurance enterprises have proven to be one of the most congenial occupations, quickest, surest and best paying business into which Negro business men have so far ventured. On the other hand the founders and managers of these companies have taken full advantage of their opportunities to give to the masses of people in their companies a timely, practical and material helpfulness that is surpassed by no other group of Colored business leaders.
Philadelphia, Pa., has the honor of having been the home of the first Negro insurance company, in the United States, which was the American Insurance Company founded in 1810.
The following named are a few of the many Colored insurance companies throughout the country that together have policies in force valued at about sixty million dollars and annually write up insurance amounting to about forty million dollars.
Afro-American Industrial Ins. Co., Jacksonville, Fla.; American Mutual Benefit Association, Houston, Tex.; Georgia Mutual Ins. Co., Augusta, Ga.; Keystone Aid Society, Phila., Pa.; Liberty Life Ins. Co., Ill. and Ind.; Liberty Mutual Life & Health Ins. Co., Savannah, Ga.; Mammouth Life and Accident Ins. Co., Louisville, Ky.; Mutual Relief and Benevolent Ass’n, Columbia, S. C.; National Benefit Life Ins. Co., Washington, D.C.; North Carolina Mutual and Provident Ass’n, Durham, N. C.; Fireside Mutual Ins. Co., Atlanta, Ga.; Provident Ins. Co., Chicago, Ill.; Southern Life Ins. Co., Baltimore, Md.; Standard Life Ins. Co., Atlanta, Ga.; Superior Mutual Ins. Co., The Lincoln Life Ins. Co., New Orleans, La.; Underwriters’ Mutual Ins. Co., Chicago, Ill.; Union Central Relief Ass’n, Birmingham, Ala.; Union Mutual Ins. Co., Jacksonville, Fla.; Unity Ind. and Life Ins. Co., New Orleans, La.; Unity Mutual Ins. Co., Chicago, Ill.; Union Guarantee and Ins. Co., of Miss., Jackson, Miss.; Richmond Beneficial Ins. Co., Richmond, Va.; Southern Aid Society of Virginia, Richmond, Va.; Virginia Beneficial and Ins. Co., Norfolk, Va. (Extracts from Works’ Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pgs. 359-60).
Some of the foremost leaders who have built up in the past or are today building up Colored insurance business in America are as follows: J. C. Asbury, Philadelphia, Pa., Geo. W. Blount, Portsmouth, Va., Chas. H. Brooks, Philadelphia, Pa., Edw. Bowen, E. H. Carry, Wm. Carter, Chicago, Ill., D.C. Chandler, Columbus and C. R. Davis, Cincinnati, O., P. H. V. Dejoie, C. C. Dejoie, Chicago, Ill., T. K. Gibson, Atlanta, Ga., F. L. Gillespie, Geo. W. Green, Chicago, Ill., H. E. Hall, Louisville, Ky., B. L. Jordan, Richmond, Va., Wm. H. King, W. J. Latham, Chicago, Ill., the late John Merrick, Durham, N. C., J. E. Mitchell, A. J. Pullen, Chicago, Ill., H. E. Perry, Atlanta, Ga., H. E. Pace, A. D. Price, and J. T. Carter, Richmond, Va., J. A. Robinson, Atlanta, Ga., Wm. Roland, Chicago, Ill., R. H. Rutherford, S. W. Rutherford, Washington, D.C., Wm. Roland, H. B. Streeter, C. S. Smith, Chicago, Ill., C. C. Spaulding and F. Winslow, Durham, N. C.
IN 1784 a Boston Negro, Prince Hall, was granted a warrant from England to establish the African Lodge, No. 459 of the Masons; and in 1843 Peter Ogden, a Colored organizer in New York, secured a charter from England to set up the Philomathean Lodge No. 646 of the Odd Fellows. Since then the Knights of Pythias, the True Reformers, The Elks, the Grand United Order of Galilean Fishermen, the National Order of Mosaic Templars, the Independent Order of St. Luke and the Grand United Order of Tents (which last named order is one of the best managed and most progressive societies organized and run entirely by women) have been established and become nationally known. The following is quoted from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, page 457:
“There are over sixty secret and fraternal organizations among Negroes in the United States of a more or less national scope. It is estimated that they have a total membership of about 2,000,000. Large sums of money have come into the treasuries of the various secret organizations. The Knights of Pythias have collected over $1,000,000 for endowment. There is over $50,000 in the Grand Lodge treasury. A considerable part of the money collected by the orders has been permanently invested. It is estimated that the Masons have about $1,000,000 worth of property; the Odd Fellows $2,000,000; and the Pythians $2,500,000. It is probable that altogether the Negro secret societies in the United States own $20,000,000 worth of property. The Odd Fellows have in New Orleans, a building that cost $36,000, and in Atlanta and Philadelphia, buildings that have cost $100,000 each. In Indianapolis, New Orleans and Chicago, Knights of Pythias own buildings each worth from $30,000 to $100,000. The Negro secret societies are paying attention to the improving of the health of their members. The Supreme Lodge of the Knights of Pythias has erected a sanitarium at Hot Springs, Arkansas; the Mosaic Templars and other societies have established health bureaus.”
Some of the leaders in the most prominent and best known of these organs are as follows:
MASONS
Imperial Potentate, C. R. Blake, Charlotte, N. C.
Imperial Chief Rabban, R. E. Monroe, Chicago, Ill.
Imperial High Priest and Prophet, R. F. Husley, Wheeling, W. Va.
Imperial Treasurer, C. A. Freeman, Washington, D.C.
Imperial Recorder, Levi Williams, Jersey City, N. J.
National Grand Commander, Bishop J. W. Alstork, Montgomery, Ala.
National Deputy Grand Commander, Dr. A. R. Robinson, Phila., Pa.
National Grand Secretary, R. J. Simmons, Atlanta, Ga.
ODD FELLOWS
Grand Master, E. H. Morris, Chicago, Ill.
Grand Master, J. S. Noel, Charleston, W. V.
Deputy Grand Master, I. L. Roberts, Boston, Mass.
Deputy Grand Master, W. T. Francis, St. Paul, Minn.
Grand Secretary, Jas. F. Needham, Phila., Pa.
Grand Secretary, R. J. Nelson, Harrisburg, Pa.
Grand Treasurer, C. Colbourne, Wilmington, Del.
PYTHIANS
Supreme Chancellor, S. W. Green, New Orleans, La.
Supreme Chancellor, W. Ashbie Hawkins, Baltimore, Md.
Supreme Vice Chancellor, E. C. Tidrington, Indianapolis, Ind.
Supreme Vice Chancellor, W. H. Willis, New York City, N. Y.
Supreme Master of Exchequer, J. H. Young, Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
Supreme Master of Exchequer, J. C. Anderson, Crewe, Va.
Supreme Keeper of Records and Seals, Dr. E. E. Underwood, Frankfort, Ky.
Supreme Keeper of Records and Seals, G. E. Gordan, Chelsea, Mass.
MOSAIC TEMPLARS
National Grand Master, S. J. Elliot, Little Rock, Arkansas.
National Grand Secretary, C. E. Bush, Little Rock, Arkansas.
National Grand Treasurer, J. A. Davis, Little Rock, Arkansas.
ORDER OF ELKS
Grand Exalted Ruler, G. W. F. McMechen, Baltimore, Md.
Grand Esteemed Leading Knight, W. C. Trueheart, Atlantic City, N. J.
Grand Secretary, G. E. Bates, Jersey City, N. J.
Grand Treasurer, J. T. Carter, Richmond, Va.
ORDER OF ST. LUKE
Right Worthy Grand Chief, Mrs. Minnie L. Banks, Macon, Ga.
Right Worthy Vice Chief, Dr. H. L. Harris, Richmond, Va.
R. W. G. Secretary and Treasurer, Mrs. Maggie L. Walker, Richmond, Va.
TRUE REFORMERS
Grand Worthy Master, S. S. Morris, Richmond, Va.
Grand Worthy Secretary, Maurice Rouselle, Richmond, Va.
Grand Worthy Treasurer, Dr. W. H. Smith, Richmond, Va.
GALILEAN FISHERMAN
National Grand Ruler, Joseph P. Evans, Baltimore, Md.
Vice Grand Ruler, G. W. V. Grey, Norfolk, Va.
Grand Treasurer, J. F. Henry, Cambridge, Md.
ORDER OF TENTS
Supreme Matron, Mrs. C. A. Gilpin, Richmond, Va.
Deputy Matron, Mrs. A. J. Valentine, Chester, Pa.
Grand Secretary, Miss Adeline M. Ward, Norfolk, Va.
(Extracts from Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pgs. 457-8-9-60).
A. B. MACON was the first Negro in the United States to be admitted before the bar to practice law, which occured in Massachusetts in 1845. Since he thus blazed such a path through the law fields of America, Colored men and women have continued to follow that pathway until today there are about one thousand Colored lawyers practicing in different parts of the United States. And they are making splendid records before judge benches and jury boxes by legally understanding, plainly interpreting, and loyally defending the laws of this land.
When Miss Charlotte Ray, as the first Colored woman lawyer in America, graduated from Howard University in 1872, she was fully justified in lightly and nimbly stepping off the campus of her Alma Mata with her heart excitedly beating in her eagerness to at once secure a case and descend upon some court room where she could try out her logical, convincing and persuasive pleadings.
Since Miss Ray’s graduation as a lawyer, it is found that while many, say twenty-five or thirty Colored women in the United States have up to the present time secured their degree of LL. B., few of them are today engaged in active law practice. Among this number the writer has only been able to locate the following who are today practicing law in this country: Attorneys Violette N. Anderson, Chicago, Ill., Carolyn Hall Mason and Marie Nadras, Washington, D.C. and Mrs. Jessica Morris, wife of Edward H. Morris, the foremost practicing Colored attorney in Chicago, is a graduate of the 1920 law class of Northwestern University and during the month of July 1921 successfully passed her State Bar Examination. At this writing she had not taken up active practice. Attorney Violette N. Anderson, 145 No. Clark Street, Chicago, Ill., is very anxious and has for quite a while been trying to locate and get into communication with every Colored woman lawyer in the United States, in order to form a National Association.
One of the many up-lifting acts performed for Colored people by Charles Sumner, that fearless Abolitionist and loyal friend to the Negro race, was to make it possible in 1865 for John Rock to be admitted as the first Negro to practice law before the United States Supreme Court.
The first Negro to hold a city judgeship in the United States was M. Wistar Gibbs, who in 1873 was elected to that responsible and dignified position in Little Rock, Ark. This learned lawyer also at different times filled such national positions as Register of the U. S. Land Office in Arkansas and United States Consul to the Island of Madagascar.
(Ref. Work’s Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition pgs. 171-283.)
Without doubt the best known and most popular Colored lawyer in the United States today is Judge Robt. H. Terrell, who as Municipal Judge for many years repeatedly appointed in Washington, D.C., by both Republican and Democratic Presidents, has won and held the good-will and respect of his white associates because of his all-round judical wisdom and logical decisions in the court room. By his pleasant and friendly manners as well as loyalty and pride in his Race, Judge Terrell has also endeared himself in the hearts of the great masses of Colored people in all parts of the country where he has traveled and spoken.
Many Negro lawyers in different parts of the country have won national recognitions and reputations by their legal fights before city or state legislative bodies for equal citizenship rights and protection of Colored citizens in the United States. The following are among those whose names come to the writer’s mind at this moment:
Hon. Harry C. Smith, while a member of the Ohio Legislature, drew up an Anti-lynching Bill and introduced it into that body in 1894 and re-introduced it in 1896 when it was enacted into a law, which has been upheld on several occasions by the Supreme Court of Ohio. This law is one of the best pieces of legislature of such nature enacted by any state in the Union, and other States that have formed such laws have modeled them after the Ohio measure. Attorney Smith was also the sponsor of the present Ohio Civil Rights Law.
Hon. Robt. R. Jackson is the father of the Illinois Civil Rights Bill that went through the Illinois General Assembly while he was a member of it. It has been through his wisdom and untiring efforts that several other city and state bills have been drawn up and passed as laws for the benefit of the Colored people in Illinois.
Hon. H. J. Copehart with the assistance of Hon. T. G. Nutter, both members of the W. Va. Legislature, has succeeded in putting through the House and Senate of that state one of the severest anti-lynching bills so far passed by any state legislative body. Representative Nutter, among the numerous measures he has had passed, is producer of the bills that were passed and enacted into laws to establish an industrial school for Colored boys and an industrial home for Colored girls in W. Va.
Hon. F. M. Roberts is the first and only Negro serving as a State Assemblyman in the California Legislature. Since he was first elected in 1918 and re-elected in 1920, he has been the means of having put through several bills that have been enacted into laws for the welfare of Negroes in California.
Hon. J. C. Asbury, a Pennsylvania Representative, is father of the Equal Civil Rights Bill that was recently killed in the Pennsylvania State Senate after having passed through the House. Legislator Asbury made such a well prepared legal fight for the passage of his bill that even those who fought against it were compelled to admire the flawlessness of the measure and the intelligent and manly contest by its sponsor.
Many other notable Negro lawyers too numerous to mention here have taken courageous and successful stands in using their legal abilities along the above lines as well as defending riot victims of their race in different parts of the country. The following names are of other prominent Colored attorneys about whom the writer learned during his research work in the following named cities: