FRIST BLACK OWNED BANK (1) TRUE REFORMERS BANK- Richmond, Va The Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of True Reformers was the first bank owned by African Americans in the United States. It was founded on March 2, 1888 by Reverend William Washington Browne and opened on April 3, 1889. Although the True Reformers bank was the first black-owned bank chartered in the United States, the Capitol Savings Bank of Washington, D.C. was the first to actually open on October 17, 1888. Its leader was a former slave named William Washington Browne. Born in 1849, Browne was a former Georgia slave who escaped joined the Union Army in the North. After the Civil War, he founded the Grand Fountain United Order of True Reformers, a black fraternal organization. In 1885 The True Reformers instituted the first insurance plan of an African American fraternal society based on actuarial calculations of life expectancies. Members and prospective members paid varying fees for their insurance according to their ages, even setting up a department for the children known as the Rosebud Department. The object of this department was.To discipline the young, to train them to practice thrift and economy, and to give lessons early in the business methods of life, to establish a fund for the relief of sick members and a mortuary fund from which, on satisfactory proof of death, of a benefited member a sum not exceeding thirty-seven dollars shall be paid to parents or guardians. Based on the success of the insurance company, In 1887 when Browne visited Charlotte County, Virginia to establish a local branch of the True Reformers, he encountered problems. The branch arranged to keep its savings with a white shopkeeper in the county, but with racial tensions high after an 1887 lynching, the shopkeeper told other white residents that local blacks were organizing and raising funds, and the branch was forced to disband. Browne decided the True Formers would have to found and run a bank itself so that its finances could not be monitored by whites. The Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of True Reformers Bank opened a year after its founding, initially operating out of Browne’s home at 105 West Jackson Street in the Jackson Ward district of Richmond, Virginia. The first day’s deposits totaled $1,269.28. In 1891, the bank moved several blocks away to 604-608 North Second Street and its membership approached 10,000, and they owned the largest black owned building in Richmond containing the bank, several business offices, four large meeting rooms, and a concert hall. Before long the True Reformers would acquired a hotel, concert halls, 150-room hotel, a home for aged members, and publish a weekly newspaper that by 1900, had a circulation of over 8,000. The bank grew and survived the financial panic of 1893, during which it was the only bank in Richmond to maintain full operation, honoring all checks and paying out the full value of accounts. Brownes standing was widely recognized. He was one of only eight men, including Booker T. Washington, selected to represent African Americans at The Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 18953 and W.E.B. Du Bois characterized Brownes Fraternal Organization as Probably the most remarkable Negro organization in the country. Browne, urged the formation of fountains to pool money and buy land saying Let us stop playing, trifling and wasting our time and talents, and scattering our little mites to the four winds of the earth, and let us unite ourselves in a solid band. He strove to help members live productive lives without depending upon the white community. Browne preached a gospel of money, morality, education and family, racial solidarity and self-help. While whites were quarreling over the Negro problem, Browne urged his fellow blacks, Let Us Work It Out Ourselves. Rev. Browne died in 1897 but the bank continued to thrive after his death, expanding into a number of other services including a newspaper, a real estate agency, a retirement home and a building and loan association. New branches opened as far away as Kansas, and by 1900 the bank was operating in 24 states, owning property valued at a total of $223,500. His impact was incredibly improtant in Jackson Ward which is known as The Cradle of Black Capitalism, and The Harlem of The South and would give way to 6 black owned banks1 including the famous St. Lukes Penny and Loan run by Maggie L. Walker. Due to the significant growth of Black-owned banks, there was also a growth of black businesses. Millions of dollars from products sold primarily to a black consumer market further enhanced the progress of black socio-economic independence. This kind of financial cooperation was a key part of the process of establishing black commerce because white-owned financial institutions refused to grant credit and capital for black individuals and businesses. The establishment and maintenance of more black-owned institutions is still very much needed in America today
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 20:41:53 +0000