During the 1900s, Durham’s Black Wall Street was one of the most thriving commercial areas throughout the south. Known as the capital of the Black middle class in America and the Bull City, Black Wall Street became nationally renowned for fostering Black entrepreneurship.
Durham, known as the Mecca of the Black South, birthed the oldest and largest black-owned life insurance company in the United States; N.C. Mutual Life Insurance Company and Mechanics and Farmers Bank, the second oldest minority-owned bank in the United States.
Durham’s Black Wall Street housed a vibrant and thriving variety of Black-owned businesses on Parrish Street, including tailors, barbers, drugstores, physicians, lawyers, and newspapers. Despite Jim Crow-era regulations across North Carolina and the South, Durham saw a 200 percent increase in the population of Black residents and, by 1920, Black-owned businesses and property totaled more than $4 million, which would have been $51 million in 2022.
The success of Black Wall Street was fueled by the efforts of two businesses; NC Mutual Life Insurance Company and Mechanics & Farmers Bank.
Founder and First President of N.C. Mutual, John Merrick, (September 7, 1859–August 6, 1919) was born into slavery in Clinton. At the age of 12, Merrick began as a brick mason in Raleigh, where he worked on the construction of Shaw University.
The uncertainty of his trade forced him into a Raleigh barbershop as a bootblack, but he quickly advanced to barbering and acquired a partnership in the business when it moved from Raleigh to Durham in 1880. By 1892 Merrick had assumed full ownership of the company and expanded it to include five barbershops in Durham, three for Whites and two for Blacks. Following his work as a barber, he began a real estate business in which he became an organizer for a fraternal insurance society, the Royal Knights of King David.
With that experience, in 1898, Merrick took the lead in launching the North Carolina Mutual, which was renamed N.C Mutual in 1919. The company’s success and its offspring, most notably the Mechanics and Farmers Bank (1908), brought him national fame as a Black representative of the New South.
Aaron McDuffie Moore, M.D. (September 6, 1863–April 29, 1923) was the first Black medical doctor of Durham, and a prominent leader in the African-American community known as Hayti.
Since the early 19th century, the Moore family of African-Indian-European descent owned land in Columbus County as free farmers. Aaron Moore worked on the family farm and attended the segregated county school along with his nine siblings. After completing eighth grade, in 1885, he enrolled in the newly built Black college in Raleigh, Shaw University, to become a professor.
However, Moore took another path and entered Leonard Medical School. He completed the four-year program in three years, passed the North Carolina medical board examinations, and in 1888 settled in Durham as the city’s first Black physician.
In 1895 Dr. Moore began to invest in new Black-owned businesses to enable the community to develop its skilled, educated class and provide jobs for them.
The Durham Drug Company was the first of his many ventures. By 1898, Moore partnered with Merrick on the establishment of N.C Mutual Life Insurance Company with Charles Clinton (C.C.) Spaulding as general manager. The company officially opened for business on April 1, 1899, on Parrish Street in Durham.
North Carolina Mutual
By 1900, N.C Mutual Life Insurance was in a precarious financial position as claims increased. During that time, the company stood as a six-story building with a mutual plaza, cafeteria, foyer, library, lounge, and claims department.
By 1906, Dr. Aaron Moore and John Merrick began issuing ordinary whole life policies in $100, $200, and $500 face amounts which founded and provided capital for Mechanics and Farmers Bank in Durham to better serve African-Americans.
By 1910, Merrick-Moore-Spaulding Land Company formed, as an NCM real estate subsidiary, constructed hundreds of low-cost rental houses in African-American neighborhoods in Durham.
John Merrick passed away in 1919, followed by Dr. Moore’s death in 1923, which led to C.C. Spaulding becoming president. As the company grew over 40 years, operations spread through 2 other buildings on Orange and Rigsbee Streets.
Beginning in 1950, NCM reached its goal of having $200 million of life insurance in force with assets of $114 million. Unfortunately, C.C Spaulding passed away, and in 1952 William J. Kennedy, Jr. taking over as president.
Asa T. Spaulding was appointed president in 1959 after William J. Kennedy, Jr.’s retired from the company. Just 10 years later, the company had over 855,000 policyholders in 13 states with 44 district offices and 26 branches in these states. By 1968, Joseph W. Goodloe became president after Asa T. Spaulding’s retirement from the company.
By 1971, NCM joined the billion-dollar league with more than $1 billion of insurance in force. In 1997, NCM was licensed to operate in 22 states and the District of Columbia with offices in 11 states and Washington, D.C., and more than $9 billion of insurance in force.
Durham continued to grow and was known broadly as the capital of the Black middle class in America during the mid-20th century. In 2004, the City of Durham partnered with a local advocacy group to launch the Parrish Street Project, revitalizing the district as part of the downtown area’s redevelopment.
In addition, six historical markers were erected to commemorate the leaders of Black Wall Street and celebrate future generations of local business owners and entrepreneurs. 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.
Mechanics and Farmers Bank
The Mechanics and Farmers Bank, North Carolina’s oldest African-American-owned bank, was established in 1908 in Durham on Parrish Street under the auspices of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance. The original charter members included Richard Fitzgerald, John Merrick, Aaron M. Moore, William G. Pearson, J.C. Scarborough, Charles C. Spaulding, J.A. Dodson, and Stanford L. Warren. Mechanics and Farmers became an essential source of financing in the 1920s, saving more than 500 African- American farms and residences when its loan department provided $200,000 in individual loans.
The bank was one of about a dozen African-American banks to survive the Great Depression and is the first lending institution in North Carolina to receive a Certificate of Authority from the Federal Housing Administration (1935).
During this time, Blacks did not have access to White-owned banks. Therefore, Mechanics and Farmers Bank provided a secure place for depositors to accumulate wealth. As a result, African-Americans finally had a bank that was sensitive to the needs of their community. Built in 1923 by Calvin Lightner, Raleigh’s branch opened on Raleigh’s Black Main Street.
Surprisingly, it was one of the only banks in Raleigh that did not fail after the stock market crash of 1929. M&F Bank is now located on East Hargett Street in downtown Raleigh and remains North Carolina’s oldest Black-owned bank and the second oldest minority-owned bank in the United States.
Hayti Heritage Center
The Hayti Heritage Center played a pivotal role during Durham’s Black Wall Street era.
Known as America’s “Capital of the Black Middle Class,” the center served as a social and cultural center hub for Durham’s Black community.
After the Civil War, the Hayti community formed once freedmen and women moved to Durham searching for work. They adopted the name Hayti for their new home after the independent Black nation of Haiti.
Throughout the 1890s, Blacks dealt with harsh Jim Crow laws, which enforced segregation among shoppers, diners, and travelers. Thankfully, in Hayti’s commercial district, businesses flourished. As a result, Black residents began to shop with local Black businesses and opened stores along Black Wall Street. The center still stands today on Old Fayetteville Street in Durham.
Black Wall Street flourished during the Reconstruction era, at a time of racial tension and systematic discrimination against Black Americans.
Throughout Durham, Black-owned businesses in Durham focused on achieving equality and racial justice through economic advancement. The innovative work of Moore, Merrick, and Spaulding received praises from Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. A historical marker stands on Parrish Street, where Black Wall Street first began in honor of its history.
