Colored girls and boys' inspiring United States history / and a heart to heart talk about white folks

by William Henry Harrison

IN INSURANCE
Poverty in Old Age

While now you have both youth and health,
Endow your life for old aged wealth,
Or loved ones, (if death first you claim),
So WANT will not bow them in shame.
—Harrison.

ONE of the chief living conditions surrounding the American Colored people that always stood as a puzzled question to the masses of American white people was; how did Negroes (considering the low cheating wages, until the World War, they had always received for their work and the usually double prices they were made to pay in buying clothes, furniture, homes, etc.) manage to keep up decent living expenses, save money and at the same time nourishingly care for their sick and properly bury their dead? It has never been understood why so few Colored people have been seen as beggars, and paupers holding up every other street corner or silently filling the potter fields; while these same places have always been over-crowded with dependent white people, who in their prosperous life times had received the highest paid wages and given the lowest bargain sales. When it is remembered that there is over ninety million Caucasians in the United States against twelve million Negroes, even then the percentage of whites in such places is much larger than that of the blacks. And from the fact that in nearly every large city in America there are to be found white men and women who own homes and thousands of dollars and still beg on street corners proves that begging is easier and comes more natural to white than to Colored people, because no instance has ever been heard of a Negro street begging when owning a home or money in a bank.

Now the facts that answer the puzzled question, as to how Negroes have always been able to “get along” generally under all circumstances, are the insurance companies, fraternal orders and beneficial societies founded and operated by Colored people in America. There is nothing in the world (including death) that the average Colored people dread more than to face downright poverty, need and beggary, and to prevent such misfortunes they become full members in these organizations even from childhood. For this reason insurance enterprises have proven to be one of the most congenial occupations, quickest, surest and best paying business into which Negro business men have so far ventured. On the other hand the founders and managers of these companies have taken full advantage of their opportunities to give to the masses of people in their companies a timely, practical and material helpfulness that is surpassed by no other group of Colored business leaders.

Philadelphia, Pa., has the honor of having been the home of the first Negro insurance company, in the United States, which was the American Insurance Company founded in 1810.

The following named are a few of the many Colored insurance companies throughout the country that together have policies in force valued at about sixty million dollars and annually write up insurance amounting to about forty million dollars.

Afro-American Industrial Ins. Co., Jacksonville, Fla.; American Mutual Benefit Association, Houston, Tex.; Georgia Mutual Ins. Co., Augusta, Ga.; Keystone Aid Society, Phila., Pa.; Liberty Life Ins. Co., Ill. and Ind.; Liberty Mutual Life & Health Ins. Co., Savannah, Ga.; Mammouth Life and Accident Ins. Co., Louisville, Ky.; Mutual Relief and Benevolent Ass’n, Columbia, S. C.; National Benefit Life Ins. Co., Washington, D.C.; North Carolina Mutual and Provident Ass’n, Durham, N. C.; Fireside Mutual Ins. Co., Atlanta, Ga.; Provident Ins. Co., Chicago, Ill.; Southern Life Ins. Co., Baltimore, Md.; Standard Life Ins. Co., Atlanta, Ga.; Superior Mutual Ins. Co., The Lincoln Life Ins. Co., New Orleans, La.; Underwriters’ Mutual Ins. Co., Chicago, Ill.; Union Central Relief Ass’n, Birmingham, Ala.; Union Mutual Ins. Co., Jacksonville, Fla.; Unity Ind. and Life Ins. Co., New Orleans, La.; Unity Mutual Ins. Co., Chicago, Ill.; Union Guarantee and Ins. Co., of Miss., Jackson, Miss.; Richmond Beneficial Ins. Co., Richmond, Va.; Southern Aid Society of Virginia, Richmond, Va.; Virginia Beneficial and Ins. Co., Norfolk, Va. (Extracts from Works’ Negro Year Book, 1918-1919 edition, pgs. 359-60).

Some of the foremost leaders who have built up in the past or are today building up Colored insurance business in America are as follows: J. C. Asbury, Philadelphia, Pa., Geo. W. Blount, Portsmouth, Va., Chas. H. Brooks, Philadelphia, Pa., Edw. Bowen, E. H. Carry, Wm. Carter, Chicago, Ill., D.C. Chandler, Columbus and C. R. Davis, Cincinnati, O., P. H. V. Dejoie, C. C. Dejoie, Chicago, Ill., T. K. Gibson, Atlanta, Ga., F. L. Gillespie, Geo. W. Green, Chicago, Ill., H. E. Hall, Louisville, Ky., B. L. Jordan, Richmond, Va., Wm. H. King, W. J. Latham, Chicago, Ill., the late John Merrick, Durham, N. C., J. E. Mitchell, A. J. Pullen, Chicago, Ill., H. E. Perry, Atlanta, Ga., H. E. Pace, A. D. Price, and J. T. Carter, Richmond, Va., J. A. Robinson, Atlanta, Ga., Wm. Roland, Chicago, Ill., R. H. Rutherford, S. W. Rutherford, Washington, D.C., Wm. Roland, H. B. Streeter, C. S. Smith, Chicago, Ill., C. C. Spaulding and F. Winslow, Durham, N. C.