Certain People (11 page)

In addition to its supposedly lofty aims, it was generally assumed that funds deposited in the Freedmen's Bank were protected by the government. To bolster this misconception, the passbooks that were issued to depositors were emblazoned with the likenesses of President Lincoln, General Grant, General Howard, and others whom blacks had come to regard as their saviors, and the bank buildings themselves were draped and festooned with American flags. The bank's initial capitalization came from hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of unclaimed deposits of black soldiers who had died or disappeared during the Civil War and left no survivors, and in its first year branches were opened in Louisville, Richmond, Nashville, Wilmington, Memphis, Mobile, and Vicksburg. By 1871, there were thirty-four branches, thirty-two of them in the South and, at its peak, the bank had seventy thousand depositors and deposits of $19,952,647.

The trouble was that, though the bank used black cashiers and tellers—who dressed in high collars, morning coats, and wore red-white-and-blue boutonnieres—and, in some branches, employed black “advisors,” the board of directors of the Freedmen's Bank was a mixture of financially naïve, though well-meaning, white missionaries, and financially unscrupulous white entrepreneurs who were looking for
their
road “to a share of the wealth, etc.” The $260,000 headquarters of the Freedmen's Bank in Washington had a particularly imposing facade of tall brownstone slabs, and was elegantly appointed and furnished within. But behind the closed doors of the directors' chamber, the schemers were at work—making illegal loans to one another, investing in overcapitalized and speculative ventures, or simply dipping their hands into the till. Later, it turned out that for most of its existence the Freedmen's Bank was actually controlled by the notorious New York financier Jay Cooke, and by 1872 the bank had been all but destroyed by fraud and embezzlement. As economic conditions got worse in 1873, and Cooke and his henchmen began to see the handwriting on the wall, the directors cast about for a black man to name as president. The most distinguished black of the day was Frederick Douglass, and so the honor was given to him. If worse came to worst, went the reasoning, the blame for the bank's collapse would fall on a black man.

Douglass should have known better than to accept the post or at least have done a bit of probing into the bank's financial situation.
Later, he was to say sadly, “I inherited a corpse.” But at the time, no doubt, the offer to be a bank president flattered his ego, and he clearly enjoyed it when, as he wrote, “I waked up one morning to find myself seated in a comfortable arm chair, with gold spectacles on my nose, and to hear myself addressed as President of the Freedmen's Bank. I could not help reflecting on the contrast between Frederick the slave boy, running about at Col. Lloyd's with only a tow linen shirt to cover him, and Frederick—President of a Bank—counting its assets by millions.”

And worse did come to worst, just three months later, with the Panic of 1873. Douglass ordered desperate economies, and even invested $10,000 of his own money in hopes of saving the sinking institution. But it was much too late, and Douglass ordered the bank to close its doors. All across the country the news of the closing of the Freedmen's Bank struck the black community like a thunderbolt. Weeping and unbelieving, blacks whose savings had been inside lined the streets outside the banks' locked branches. W. E. B. DuBois said, “Not even ten additional years of slavery could have done so much to throttle the thrift of the freedmen as the mismanagement of the series of savings banks chartered by the Nation for their special aid.” And the Nation, it seemed, had made no guarantee of depositors' accounts. In all, over a million dollars in savings were lost by the newly freed slaves.

It was not until fifteen years after the Freedmen's Bank debacle that, out of the fraternal orders, banks for blacks were tried again. In October, 1888, the Capital Savings Bank opened in Washington. That same year, organized by the Grand Fountain United Order of True Reformers, a savings bank by the same lengthy name was chartered, also in Washington. Next came the Mutual Trust Company of Chattanooga, and, in 1890, the Alabama Penny Savings and Loan Company opened in Birmingham. Between 1899 and 1905, twenty-eight more banks were organized by blacks, most of them by fraternal lodges. Most of them, too, went under—through bad management, lack of skill (the president of Alabama Penny Savings, for example, was a clergyman, and the vice president was a bartender), or as a result of the periodic panics and depressions that characterized the era. Some black financial institutions, however, survived.

John Merrick, for example, was born a slave in Clinton, North Carolina, in 1859. He taught himself to read and write and went to work at the age of twelve in a Chapel Hill brickyard. He also shined
shoes in a Raleigh barbershop, taught himself the barber's skill, and, in his spare time, studied high finance. In 1880, he moved to Durham where, twelve years later, he owned five barbershops and was the personal barber of the tobacco tycoon Washington Duke. Merrick was a frugal man and, at Mr. Duke's suggestion, he invested every penny he could in real estate. He also noticed the burgeoning business that was involved in the fraternal orders, and in 1883 he established the Royal Knights of King David. Fifteen years later, with a local physician, Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore, he organized the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association. The first few years of the insurance company were difficult, but John Merrick forged on, firing salesmen who were unproductive, hiring new ones that were. Before his death in 1919, Merrick's company, renamed North Carolina Mutual Life, had $16,096,722 worth of insurance in force. Merrick had organized, in the meantime, a number of satellite companies—the Bull City Drug Company, the Merrick-Moore-Spaulding Real Estate Company, the Durham Textile Mill, and the Mechanics and Farmers Bank. North Carolina Mutual is the largest black-owned insurance company in the United States today, followed by John Johnson's Supreme Life Insurance Company of America.

The other, Atlanta Life, was founded by Alonzo F. Herndon, who, like John Merrick, was also born in slavery in 1858, and—by coincidence—was also a barber. As a young freed man, he acquired several barbershops and, in 1882, Herndon moved to Atlanta, where he quickly became known as the best barber in town. In 1904, he opened a fancy establishment on Peachtree Street which was described at the time as “the most popular and most successful business of its kind in the country.” Herndon got into the insurance business almost by accident. In 1905, the Georgia legislature passed a law requiring mutual aid societies to deposit $5,000 with state officials. Many—particularly those run by black churches—could not meet this requirement, and so Alonzo Herndon came to the rescue. He purchased several church associations, including two that he bought for $160. Atlanta Life was started in a one-room office in the Rucker Building on Auburn Avenue. Ten years later, capital stock of $25,000 was subscribed and sold—with Herndon buying most of the stock himself—and in 1922 the capital stock of the company was increased to $100,000, with Herndon again buying nearly all of it. By the time he died in 1927, Atlanta Life was a major institution in the black community, as it remains today.

While the fraternal orders were helping black businessmen—or at least
some
black businessmen—get ahead in a money sense, the sororities and social clubs were helping women advance socially. Out of Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta have sprung such women's organizations as The Girl Friends, started in New York in 1927 by sixteen friends—girl friends, one supposes. The Girl Friends has expanded, and has several dozen chapters in as many cities. Though it is primarily a social club, The Girl Friends are active in community service. Then there is the small and exclusive Gay North-easterners, known for its beautiful balls, and composed for the most part of New York and Connecticut ladies. In Memphis, the Memphis Dinner Club is so selective that it has only eight members. The Smart Set Club of Houston, founded in 1944 by the smartest of Houston's smart set, was originally composed of the five wives of the city's five leading doctors and dentists. Houston's black society reverberated with the news several years ago that The Smart Set was expanding its membership to twelve. In Philadelphia, there is the Cotillion Society, which, despite its name, has nothing to do with debutantes. It supports an opera company, and offers a showcase for young black singers, musicians, and other artists. To be “in” in Roanoke, Virginia, one would want to join the Altruist Club and, in Washington, there are a number of quaintly named clubs, including the What Good Are We, the Sappy Sues, and the Regular Buddies—all modeled more or less on The Girl Friends. One of the larger national women's clubs for the upper crust is known as The Moles (husbands of Moles are called The Mules), which has chapters in 24 Eastern cities, from as far south as Georgia and as far west as Illinois. In addition to purely social doings—teas, luncheons, and card parties—The Moles support a black scholarship program.

There are also elite clubs for both men and women, such as Jack and Jill of America. Jack and Jill members must be parents, and the organization runs a club for children called the Jack and Jill Juniors. One of the purposes of Jack and Jill is to see to it that proper young girls meet proper young boys. And the women's clubs are backed up by purely social men's clubs, where men gather at each others' homes or hotel suites just for camaraderie and good times—such as the Royal Coterie of Snakes in Chicago, the Me-Do-So Club in Baltimore, the Original Illinois Club in New Orleans, the Comus Club of New York and Brooklyn, the Bachelor-Benedicts in Washington, the Strikers in Mobile, and the Cotillion Club in Detroit. These clubs
were originally founded by small groups of men from particular professions—doctors, dentists, pharmacists, lawyers. Sons and close friends of members are eligible for membership. They must be proposed, seconded, and passed by the entire group before they are taken in. Gerri Major, the former society editor of
Ebony
, has said, “Maneuvering to insure inclusion of a relative on one of these lists rivals the intrigue of foreign diplomats seeking American financial aid. Guest lists, too, are limited. An invitation is a royal command, thankfully acknowledged.” In many cities, the men's social clubs sponsor the black debutante balls.

Then there are summer clubs, at resorts where affluent blacks vacation and have summer homes—at Highland Beach, Arundel-on-the-Bay, Columbia Beach, or Eagle Harbor, all on Chesapeake Bay, or on Martha's Vineyard at the black summer colony of Oak Bluffs. A number of upper-crust New York families maintain second summer homes in the old whaling village of Sag Harbor, on the eastern end of Long Island. The black joke is: “That's why they call it Sag Harbor. Everything is sagging.”

But, in fact, though the black summer colony at Sag Harbor may have sagged a bit when it started two to three generations ago, it is very much propped up today. Homes in the enclave are large, attractive, and well maintained. A number have swimming pools, and several have tennis courts. Areas of Sag Harbor that were once known as Nineveh and Mount Misery have been stylishly renamed Azurest and Sag Harbor Heights. (Though the terrain of Suffolk County is notoriously flat, there are hilly spots in Sag Harbor that would qualify as “heights.”) Sag Harbor's summer set is famously close-knit, clannish, and exclusive. Its leaders are members of New York's Pickens family (real estate), who have been summering here for many years, and New York State Supreme Court justice Edward R. Dudley and his wife, who own one of the houses with its own private pool. Newcomers with social ambitions find the going tough. “Money alone just won't do it here,” says one summer resident. “There's one woman who's built a big new place, but no one's impressed with her sauna and her gymnasium and her bidets. To us, she's simply
nouveau
.” In Sag Harbor Heights, the wooded lanes are unpaved to discourage rubberneckers or other unwanted visitors. There is a private beach, with a three-dollar parking fee for “outsiders.” There is very little commingling with Sag Harbor's white summer colony, nor with any of the Hamptons beyond. Needless to say, there is no social
intercourse at all with the large—and very poor—black population of nearby Bridgehampton.

At the oldest and most snobbish of the black summer resorts, Highland Beach—founded in the 1880s by Frederick Douglass's son—there was for years a rule, laid down by the light-skinned Establishment, that dark-skinned blacks could not join the club, or buy property there; this rule has since been eased, but only somewhat. At Oak Bluffs, where upper-crust blacks have also been going for years (Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke has a large house there), life is also very staid and seemly. “Oak Bluffs is more formal,” says Mrs. Paul Hough, whose family have had a summer home there for two generations. “We have bridge parties in the afternoon, small formal dinners in the evening. People bring their cars, and are driven to parties by their chauffeurs. We have a private beach, and a private tennis club. It amuses me to notice how, all at once, tennis has become such a big thing with white people. Why, my mother was having private tennis lessons at Oak Bluffs when she was a little girl!” No small amount of social rivalry exists, meanwhile, between Sag Harbor and Oak Bluffs. A Sag Harbor resident says, “Oak Bluffs has become terribly
Middle West
. You know, those pushy Chicago people.” A longtime Oak Bluffs resident sniffs and counters, “I hear that Sag Harbor these days has become completely
overrun
.”

In 1946, two Philadelphia ladies, Sarah S. Scott and the late Margaret R. Hawkins, founded Links, Incorporated, which, though it is not as venerable as The Girl Friends, has become the most prestigious—and exclusive—black women's organization in America. Originally, the Links was simply a social group, centered about weekly bridge parties (members of Links were quite conscious of the black woman's traditional love of poker, but poker has long been relegated to the lower class; the upper-class black woman plays bridge). But as Links expanded, it took on philanthropic projects and it has become the black equivalent of the Junior League.