This was evidently a sore point.
We went to Brown’s Bank. Brown has gone to Philadelphia to start a second Negro bank. The first one has been in existence ten years. Brown is a financier, and something more than that. For he encourages the Negro theatres and is greatly helping his people along their way. We also visited the polite edifice of the Tidewater Bank and Trust Company, which has been built since the Armistice. “It was contracted for by Negroes and built by Negroes alone,” said the treasurer proudly—a blunt, bullet-headed, whimsical fellow, with an intense desire to push business and to hustle. All the clerks and stenographers were colored. Each teller sat in his steel cage for which he alone held the key. All the latest banking machinery was in operation, including the coin separator and counter and wrapper, and the adding machine. I worked an imaginary account under colored direction, using the adding machine, and gave assent to its infallibility. They showed me their strong room, and I peeped at their cash reserves. The treasurer and “Revrun” then took me up into a high mountain, namely, the Board Room, which was in a gallery overlooking the whole of the working part of the bank.
“My motto,” said the treasurer, “is, ‘Folks who only work for us as long as they are paid will find they are only paid for what they have done.’ We work here till we are through, be it eleven or twelve o’clock at night. The man who isn’t hard is not for us.”
We talked about the Negro.
“He must win freedom,” said the banker. “It is never a bequest, but a conquest. You can’t have redemption without the shedding of the Precious Blood, can you, Reverend? I am fighting for the Negro by succeeding in business. There’s only one thing that can bring him respect, and that is achievement.”
These were his most impressive words. We walked out of the new bank.
“He has his knock-about car and his limousine and a finely appointed house and a governess for his children,” said Rev. B——, as we footed it once more in the sun-bathed street. “But of course you can be a millionaire to-day and it won’t help you to marry even the poorest white girl. Or you can be a Negro heiress, but no amount of wealth will induce a white man to marry a colored girl. For the matter of that, though, there are Negroes so white you couldn’t tell the difference, and we’ve got plenty to choose from if our tastes lie that way. If a Negro wants to marry a white, he can find plenty within his own race.”
Rev. B—— was himself married to a woman who could pass as white, in Southern Europe, and his children were little white darlings with curly hair. We hailed a heavy “F and D” car. I will not mention the actual name of the build. A young colored dandy was sitting in it. “You see this car?” said Reverend. “It belongs to Dr. R——. It’s an ‘F and D.’ In many places the agents will not sell this build of car to a Negro, even for cash down.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, it’s a fine type of car, and rich white men in a city don’t care to see a colored man going about in one exactly the same. An agent would lose business if he sold them to Negroes. What’s more, whether he lost business or not, he wouldn’t do it. Here in Virginia, however, there is not so much prejudice, but when you go further South you’ll find it.”