Maggie Lena Walker, America’s first black banker

“Let’s create a bank that takes pennies and turns them into dollars.” No, this sentence is not from the Rothschilds or Rockefellers of the World Economic Forum. It is the case of an African-American woman in 1901. This unique businesswoman was born in 1867 to a clandestine union between her mother (a Southerner who sympathized with the Northern abolitionist project during the Civil War) and an Irish journalist. Virginia state laws then prohibited intermarriage; a little mixed girl growing up in a black community.

A warrior at heart

Thanks to charity work and her mother’s persistence, she studied and became a teacher. After that, according to the law, once married, she refuses national education. But Maggie is a fighter. He became involved in the Order of St. Luke, a religious order that supported blacks economically and socially. He notes that the tontine system, a form of collective savings, does not improve people’s lives. At dawn on the 20th^e century, while segregation structured everyday life in the states of the Old South, there were almost no savings banks for blacks. They do not have liquidity for their daily expenses and are unable to take loans to purchase housing.

Maggie believes that it is necessary to develop a capitalism that affects them more directly. He trained in banking with a white banker from Virginia, organized a fundraiser, and opened the St. Luke’s Penny Savings Bank in 1903. He encourages his entire community to open accounts and come and save every last nickel (cent). It then offers a system of consumer loans for home ownership. Please note that Maggie’s Bank, a powerful anti-discrimination weapon, is not a charity. If the user does not repay, he appears in court and goes through recovery procedures.

The opening of the Emporium

After her initial success, Maggie invested in merchandising, opening The Emporium, the first black department store in the city of Richmond. A civil rights activist, she became one of the largest employers in her region, helping to recruit particularly the black women she supported. The success of the entrepreneur causes some jealousy among the racist white businessmen, but the banker does not regret any violence comparable to the massacre of Black Wall Street in Oklahoma in 1921. Virginia, certainly a southern state, did not block the emergence of an independent economy in the African-American community.

Maggie’s Institution survived the stock market crash of 1929 without becoming an investment bank. The thrift products sold avoided disaster. The bank even merged with others and Maggie Lena Walker founded Consolidated Bank and Trust. He died rich, famous and respected in 1934. His bank still exists, dedicated to the needs of the African American community. In terms of the way it developed the economy of its community, it created a legacy that still burns under the Buy Black name.

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