Eliza Allen
Eliza Allen was no stranger to hard work and grassroots organizing. So when bank founder William W. Browne came knocking, with a need for a shrewd mind to help charter the first Black-owned bank, Allen signed up to open the first local branches of the history-making True Reformers Bank in Richmond, Virginia.
“The tireless efforts and committed leadership of women like Allen,” says historian Shennette Garrett-Scott, “allowed many of the most popular societies to build on the foundation of mutual aid, benevolence, and burial aid societies laid during slavery to create strong banks and insurance organizations in freedom.”
Mabel Z. Mollison
After graduating from Oberlin Business College in the early 1900s, where would Mabel Mollison’s career take her next? Bet you didn’t think it’d be Mississippi’s Lincoln Savings Bank. As the arguably first Black woman bank cashier, she was responsible for all the bank’s financial transactions and was the bank’s public spokesperson.
Lillian H. Payne
Maggie Walker may have been the first Black woman to charter a bank, but it was Payne who served as her right hand. Payne served on the St. Luke Bank’s board of directors and finance committee, which underwrote loan applications.
Thanks to Payne’s pioneering efforts, by 1920 more than 600 Black customers had received and paid off home mortgages in full! What an astonishing feat, especially for back then.