n 1901, a 37-year-old daughter of a former slave and white Confederate soldier addressed the members of her Black fraternal society in Richmond, Virginia, and posed a provocative question: “Who is so helpless as the Negro woman?” Maggie L. Walker asked the Independent Order of St. Luke.
But on November 2, 1903, thirty-eight years after the end of slavery, Walker opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, becoming the first Black female bank founder in America. Her bank offered checking and savings accounts, mortgages, and investment capital for local entrepreneurs, who would help shape Jackson Ward into a thriving center for Black businesses. At the same time, Walker also handed out small coin banks to help customers save at home and encouraged them to come back to St.
Desk Set: Walker established the St. Luke bank to give Black woman career paths beyond domestic housework and menial labor.Her career hamstrung by sexism and racism, Walker began rising through the ranks of the Independent Order of St. Luke, which she had first joined in her teens. When founder William Forrester mismanaged the organization’s finances to the point of near collapse—St.
In June 1913, the bank had nearly $120,000 in outstanding loans and $17,004 in cash deposits . St. Luke also pioneered what we now consider microlending—the bank made loans as small as $5 and considered a wide range of factors in its underwriting. Character, work ethic and community ties often went into lending decisions, compared to more traditional standards such as employment status and income.
“She was discriminated against all her life,” says Bullard. “She was a woman in a man's world. She was African American in a Caucasian world. She was disabled in a very ableist society.”