Maggie Lena Walker

A Giant in Business and Life

By Malik Russell

The era of Jim Crow eased in like a whisper. After the end of the Civil War in 1864, far from attaining the promise of freedom assured them by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, African Americans were faced with a new harsh reality.

Old ways die hard, and some didn’t die at all, particularly in Richmond, Va., the former capital of the Confederate States. In Richmond, as in other parts of the country, racial segregation replaced slavery for the next hundred or so years.

It was into this vacuum that Maggie Mitchell was born to former enslaved Africans on July 15, 1867. She was born in Richmond during the Reconstruction Period, when the presence of Union troops in the South gave African Americans some measure of freedom that slowly eased away into a stoic system of racial segregation known as Jim Crow.

Maggie was born to Elizabeth Draper, who was freed by her slave owner prior to the Civil War. Maggie’s father was a white northerner who wrote for a northern newspaper. Eventually, Draper remarried William Mitchell, who had worked as a butler in the same house and eventually became head waiter at a local hotel, which at the time was considered an excellent job for African Americans.

Maggie’s stepfather died when she was still young and in order to help the family survive, she carried laundry in the streets of Richmond for pennies a day. It was harsh work, but it helped the family keep a roof over their heads.

At age 14 she made a small decision that would play a huge role in an amazing life. It was the decision that would result in her becoming the first African-American woman, and possibly the second woman in the nation to become president of a bank.

One of the few African-American children able to attend school, Maggie decided to join the Daughters of St. Luke, a group founded by former slave Mary Prout. Prout saw the suffering endured by many ostensibly freed after the Civil War and wanted to do something about it. She formed the Daughters of St. Luke to help the less fortunate by having members volunteer their time. Later, the organization began accepting small contributions from its members of a few pennies per month to form an insurance group so that there would be help for the sick or dying. The society flourished and eventually men joined the group and it was renamed the Independent Order of St. Luke.

In 1886 at age 19, Maggie married a building contractor named Armstead Walker, Jr., and became Maggie Lena Walker. They had three children, two of whom survived.

In 1899, 20 years after joining the Order of St. Luke, Maggie then a teacher, took over as leader of the organization which, good deeds notwithstanding, was ridden with debt and on the verge of collapsing.

Moving quickly with a purpose and vision, Maggie brought on women advisors and friends and inspired members to pool their money to send their children to college and to buy homes. St. Luke’s took off and membership and dollars poured in.

Ten years after pulling the organization from the verge of extinction, St. Luke’s by 1910 owned its own bank then known as the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank and a three-story department store. She was then named and believed to be at the time the first woman president of a bank in the nation.

No Simple Challenges

Still stuck in the midst of the Old South of Richmond, the Order faced stiff and constant attacks from white merchants afraid of losing the African-American communities dollars and the idea of self-sufficiency. And in 1929 the nation as a whole was shaken to its core by the Stock Market Crash and the beginning of the Great Depression that resulted in the failure and collapse of many banks and self-help organizations with no regards to race. Under Maggie’s vision, the Order bought up the other African-American-owned banks in town during the Great Depression and renamed it the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company.

Maggie also faced a personal crisis within her family and internal power struggles within the order that challenged her leadership and questioned her integrity. Her personal tragedies exploded publicly when her son mistakenly shot and killed her husband thinking him a burglar.

Amazingly, Maggie held on and the Order continued to strive until her death in 1934. At her death, she had owned a 25-room house in downtown Richmond that is now a historical site. The Order of St. Luke was then in 23 states with almost 100,000 members and over $500,000 in assets. The bank continues today as the Consolidated Bank and Trust.

A giant at a time when most African Americans had few opportunities, Maggie stood tall. She stood not merely as a successful businesswoman, but as a trailblazer, one who opened doors to myriad possibilities.

She used her success to raise money for health and education programs for African Americans, and she served as an activist and advocate for the interests of the African-American community while founding such organizations as the Richmond Council of Colored Women and the Saint Luke Herald newspaper.

Maggie Lena Walker’s rise to success represents one of the many often untold stories that dispel myths and give credence to the idea that anything is possible.