Financial History Issue 128 (Winter 2019) | Page 29
“Black Wall Street” historical marker in Durham, NC.
Morning Herald, “The NC Mutual build-
ing is getting a dramatic makeover, one
that will see its landmark name stripped
from the top of the building. The 12-story,
1960s-era office tower has been renamed
Legacy Tower by a development group led
by Michael Lemanski, who plans to update
the building to attract new tenants.
“Earlier this year, NC Mutual announced
it would shrink its footprint there from six
floors to one, opening up 60,000 square
feet of office space there. Lemanski bought
the building in 2006 for $10.5 million. The
renovations come as the 118-year-old NC
Mutual reduces its presence in Durham.
The naming rights of the building are also
available for purchase, so potentially a new
company name will adorn the top of the
building.”
The heyday of Black Wall Street was
in the 1930s and ’40s, said Lee at the
heritage center. “There was a real surge in
black-owned companies. That continued
through the Civil Rights Era. There was
violence during that period, but not as
much as in other cities. That tolerance has
always been a part of the Durham DNA.”
Part of it, she suggested, was the small
number of wealthy white families that
dominated local business and politics,
notably the Dukes. In particular, Lee
noted, Washington Duke (1820-1905)
“had an affinity for the Hayti community,”
when it was just coming into its own.
“Uncle Wash” Duke cut the figure
of a classic southern gentleman, but he
was atypical in every way, according to
the Dictionary of North Carolina Biogra-
phy, edited by William S. Powell. Duke
opposed secession, but he was drafted
late in the war. He was captured near
Richmond, Virginia, in the last month of
the war, paroled and walked the 130 miles
home. He joined the Republican Party
in 1868, and invested in manufacturing
rather than agriculture. An early indus-
trialist and philanthropist, he had friends
in the black community and gave promi-
nently to Hayti causes and institutions.
Lee stresses an important balance in the
business and cultural growth and pros-
perity. Acceptance by the white power
structure at the time was necessary, but not
sufficient. “Hayti community development
had businesses established in every facet of
life,” she stated. “There was critical mass
for a self-sustaining community. The white
power structure supported, even patron-
ized the black businesses. Not everyone, of
course, but a surprising number.”
Notably there was a thriving enter-
tainment community that attracted both
white and black audiences, very similar
to what was happening in Harlem in New
York about the same time.
There were stores, funeral homes,
clothing and shoe makers, as well as a Spei-
ght’s Auto Service Center, which still exists
today. According to Durham’s Hayti, by
Andre D. Vann and Beverly Washington
Jones, “Theodore Roosevelt Speight came
to Durham in 1932 with only 83 cents and
took a job at a service station.”
Just six years later he opened his own
station, which thrived for more than two
decades. It was forced to close in 1966
because of what was then called “urban
renewal,” in this case the building of the
Durham Freeway. Speight’s reopened at
a new location a few blocks away and is
today the only surviving auto shop from
they heyday of Hayti. Another survivor is
Scarborough’s Funeral Home, now in its
third generation of family ownership.
Along with NC Mutual, the other pil-
lar of Black Wall Street is Mechanics and
Farmers Bank (M&F Bank). It is a state-
chartered commercial bank, first orga-
nized in 1907. The original incorporators
were a group of nine prominent business-
men, headed by R.B. Fitzgerald. John Mer-
rick and Aaron Moore, principals in the
founding of NC Mutual, were also among
the founders of the M&F.
According to the bank’s official his-
tory, “The founders and original custom-
ers represented various trades, crafts and
professions in which the African Ameri-
can community had achieved success and
prominence, so ‘mechanics’ likely was
derived from the legal term ‘mechan-
ics lien’ that grouped such occupations
together. Additionally, most of North
Carolina‘s wealth at the turn of the 20th
century was based on the ownership of real
property, especially farmland, hence the
term ‘farmers.’ [Thus] the bank is dedicated
to serving all facets of the community.”
Like NC Mutual, Speight’s and Scarbor-
ough’s, M&F carries on today. Another
Hayti original is the 1891 church that is
now part of the Hayti Heritage Center.
And while there is a prominent historical
marker near Parrish Street in downtown
Durham, it is the heritage center and the
operating businesses that show Black Wall
Street lives on.
Gregory DL Morris is an independent
business journalist, principal of Enter-
prise & Industry Historic Research
(www.enterpriseandindustry.com) and
an active member of the Museum’s edito-
rial board.
www.MoAF.org | Winter 2019 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 27