Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site

Transcription

In the United States of America, circa 1900, a woman was not considered equal to a man. A woman could not even visit a voting booth and choose her government representative. And a black woman-- well, that was one more step down. She had to take a back seat to everybody. So imagine what it was like to be a fly on the wall in Richmond in 1925, and see Maggie Walker leading a meeting of the board of directors of the company she owned. Maggie Walker giving the orders to men. Maggie Walker building a business. Maggie Walker creating a legacy of success that will last a hundred years and more. Maggie Walker took the stereotype of a black woman in the early twentieth century and laid it to waste. Maggie Walker's accomplishments were not just worthy for women or African-Americans, but her achievement set the standard for all Americans. Industry, business, capitalism. These are universal truths about our American culture. That's how our modern economy was built. In the early twentieth century, segregation created an entirely separate economy complete with successful African-American entrepreneurs. In Richmond, Virginia, young Maggie Walker was about to become a big part of that economy. Slavery is over and you have public education--mass education--so African-Americans are able to get these jobs that require formal education, such as lawyers doctors, teachers--they're able to get those roles. And once they get those roles and then the classes started vary more and then you have the emergence of this elite African-American class. Maggie Walker was one of the first women in the United States, and the first African-American woman, to create a bank. Even more impressive is that the bank she started in the twentieth century is still running strong in the twenty-first century. This Richmond woman was born into poverty, but valued education, her faith, and hard work above anything else. She used those qualities to gain her financial independence and elite status which helped her open doors for others. The origin of Consolidated Bank & Trust Company was an African-American self-help organization called the Independent Order of Saint Luke. It was started by a woman named Mary Prout in 1867 in Baltimore, and um...it was started as a secret society, providing those benefits. And then, as the decades went on, the organization grew. It provided more streamlined insurance, membership grew and things like that, and on until the 1890s. The membership declined, the funds where in the hole, basically, and then someone nominated Maggie Walker to be the leader or the right-worthy Grand Secretary of the organization and she took that role in 1899. Missis Walker met the obstacles of poverty and segregation with a deft creativity. When she took charge of Saint Luke, the organization had only $32 in assets and more than $400 in debt. She worked with other St. Luke's chapters to sell stock in the organization to raise money to buy a building. She founded at the St. Luke Herald, which publicized the social struggles African-Americans suffered under segregation. In 1903, she founded the St. Luke Penny Bank, leaving the organization profitably and lifting her community. She also ensured the bank would last for generations by merging with another bank to become Consolidated Bank & Trust. She urged African-Americans to start their own businesses, and one of the ways in which she implemented that was starting that bank--the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank. And in that way she was able to provide loans to African-Americans so that they could acquire property, and start their own businesses, and she saw through to the end that what she was preaching--this African-American sustainability--was actually working. These success stories put Maggie in demand as a public speaker, and every opportunity she had, she pushed African-Americans to invest in their own community, and she demanded that women be given equal oppurtunities as men. "Let woman choose her own vocation, just as man does his," she once said. "Let her go into business, let her make money, let her become independent." Maggie Walker's ingenuity, innovative spirit, and a heart as kind and big as all of Virginia changed perspective. She let nothing stop her. She made sure that she saw her dreams and her goals through till the end. And because of that, because she had such determination, we still see some of those dreams and goals that she had around today. Not only could an African-American woman running an induring business, a business could be built with the well-being of its community at heart.