Financial History Issue 128 (Winter 2019) | Page 27
By Gregory DL Morris
In 2019 the city of Durham, North
Carolina, celebrates its sesquicentennial.
Beyond the celluloid fame of the Bull City’s
baseball team is an even more inspiring
story of how this town nurtured a thriving
and enduring black business community.
“Durham was originally a railroad
depot and warehouses that prospered
on tobacco,” said Angela Lee, executive
director of the Hayti Heritage Center.
“Tobacco meant plantations and slaves.
After the Civil War there remained a large
population of former slaves who had to
decide their own future. They were freed,
but still legally segregated; they literally
had to stay on their side of the tracks.”
The Hayti (“HAY-tie”) community
started to coalesce about the turn of the
century as formerly enslaved peoples
settled in and began building. “Durham
started out with numbers,” Lee explained.
“There were people from the area, and
others who came here from other parts of
the South.”
From the earliest days of settlement
through colonial times, North Caro-
lina was something of a neutral ground
between the population and trading cen-
ters of Tidewater Virginia and Maryland
around the Chesapeake Bay, and Charles-
ton, to the south. North Carolina lacks
major navigable rivers; its marshy coast-
line as well as fearsome tides and weather
around Cape Hatteras kept settlements
small and scattered.
One important factor in the concentra-
tion of people and talent in and around
central North Carolina was that it suffered
relatively little damage from the war that
devastated wide swaths of Virginia and
South Carolina on either side. Indeed its
major war historical site is the Bennett
Place, just outside Durham, where the
last and largest surrender of Confederate
troops took place.
In a farmhouse between Union General
William T. Sherman’s headquarters in
Raleigh and Confederate General Joseph
E. Johnston’s headquarters in Greensboro,
those the two commanders met in the days
after the more famous surrender at Appo-
mattox Courthouse, Virginia. On April
26, 1865, Sherman and Johnston signed
Employees of the North Carolina Mutual Life
Insurance Company, which was established in
Durham, NC, in 1898 and was one of Black Wall
Street’s most successful businesses.
surrender papers for Southern armies in
the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. It was
the largest troop surrender of the Ameri-
can Civil War.
“Atlanta and Charleston burned,” said
Lee at the heritage center. “Durham did
not burn.” Instead, Durham got to work,
both black and white. Perhaps the best-
known Black Wall Street success story is
the North Carolina Mutual Life Insur-
ance Company, established in 1898 by
African-American business leaders who
recognized the need for an insurance asso-
ciation to serve black consumers.
“Go to Durham….
You need the inspiration.
Go to Durham and see
Negro businesses with
aggregate capital of
millions. Go to Durham and
see 22 Negro men making
modern history. Among
your New Year’s resolves,
resolve to go to Durham!”
—1928 editorial in
The St. Luke Herald (Richmond,
Virginia), a black weekly
It is important to note that these were
already established professionals with the
wherewithal to form a well-capitalized
firm, and also with sufficient respect
within the white local and state power
structure to be left unobstructed. There
were also black consumers, not just cus-
tomers, but professionals, homeowners
and artisans.
According to its official company his-
tory, “North Carolina Mutual Life Insur-
ance Company was born out of a heart-felt
desire and determination to serve the
underserved. In 1898, African Americans
were fewer than three decades from slav-
ery. Established insurance companies had
little or no interest in marketing to the
black community. Just meeting end-of-life
expenses and being able to bury a loved
one with dignity—something that can
be achieved through life insurance—were
beyond the means of a great portion of
African Americans.”
The use of the word “mutual” in the name
was deliberate, the company explained.
“When our founders decided to create an
insurance company for the African-Amer-
ican market, they each had to contrib-
ute from their own resources, making it a
mutual undertaking. Similarly, each policy-
holder gained a small stake in the company,
with the health of their policy dependent on
NC Mutual’s progress. The success of this
mutual enterprise was a tremendous source
of pride for African Americans in Durham
and across the country in those early days
of freedom.” While the business model has
changed over the years, NC Mutual contin-
ues to provide access to life, health, disabil-
ity and annuity insurance for a diverse com-
munity in the area and around the state.
Its seven organizers were men who were
active in business, educational, medical
and civic life of the Durham community,
and the firm has been a catalyst for minor-
ity, social and economic development.
Racial self-help and uplift are traditions of
the company dating back to its founding.
The phrase “merciful to all” was the com-
pany’s first motto.
John Merrick, an entrepreneurial bar-
ber with substantial real-estate holdings,
and Dr. Aaron Moore, Durham’s first
African American physician, were two
of the most active founders, according
to the company history. When financial
troubles forced five of the seven found-
ers to leave the venture, Moore, Merrick
and Moore’s nephew, C.C. Spaulding—
who later served as the company’s long-
time president—reorganized the firm. The
three became known as the Triumvirate.
“In the time of Jim Crow, significant
efforts were made—through a legal and
informal means—to relegate African Amer-
icans to second-class citizenship,” said Ben
Speller, a senior research fellow at North
Carolina Central University in Durham.
“There were businesses that blacks could
not patronize, and these men decided to fill
in the gaps. If white-owned insurance agen-
cies and banks could not or would not serve
blacks, people like Merrick, Moore and
Spaulding would provide those services.”
To that end, NC Mutual formulated its
concept of the “double-duty” dollar. Mod-
eled after popular mutual benefit societies,
the premise was that income from insur-
ance sales could be channeled back into
the community. Throughout its history,
the company has had programs to build
strong families and communities through
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