CITYLAB looks at The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street and Richmond’s role in that history

Jackson Ward was once known as the Black Wall Street and is even the subject of a movie called Black Wall Street – The Money, The Music & The People.

An article posted yesterday on CITYLAB (originally in The Atlantic) points to Richmond’s Black Wall Street collapse as an example of how and why black owned banks are currently failing across the country. The article points out that only 25 black-owned banks remain in the United States.

At the turn of the 20th century, it was one of the most prosperous black communities in the United States, with thriving theaters, stores, and medical practices. Richmond is where the first black banks opened, including one chartered to a former schoolteacher named Maggie Walker—the daughter of a freed slave. The St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, which Walker opened in 1903, made loans to qualified borrowers who were shunned by traditional banks, such as black doctors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs. St. Luke’s would eventually merge with other black banks and become Consolidated Bank and Trust. By the end of the 20th century, the bank was the last black-owned bank in Richmond and was struggling to compete with much bigger banks downtown. It had several troubled loans on its books and couldn’t raise enough capital to stay afloat.