On account of having detailed knowledge of their enterprises unshaken determination to succeed, unusual energetic efforts, strict attention to business, courteous manners to customers, integrity of word, prompt payment of debts, frugal methods of saving and living within their means, the late Messrs. McKee, Minton, Smith, Stevens and Trower of Philadelphia, Pa., in accumulating wealth amounting to millions of dollars, proved themselves among the most prominent and successful Colored business men the United States have produced.
IN BANKING
Every Dollar Saved Shows a Little More (Sense) Cents
In good strong banks all youths should seek
One dollar at least to save per week;
So when old age on them does creep
They’ll not in poorness have to weep.
—Harrison.
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.