#OnThisDay "October 20, 1898, John Merrick and six fellow investors met in the office of Dr. Aaron Moore to organize the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association.

Among the group of African American leaders were educators James E. Shepard and Edward A. Johnson. The company was incorporated in February 1899 and opened for business two months later. Merrick, who served as president, is generally acknowledged as the founder. Dr. Moore, who succeeded him as president in 1919, is called the co-founder but Moore acknowledged in 1920 that it was Merrick who took the initiative in the organization. Along with C. C. Spaulding, Moore’s cousin, they formed the “Triumvirate” which led North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company (the name was changed in 1919) for over 50 years.

The company spawned allied businesses, among them Mechanics and Farmers Bank, a hosiery mill, real estate company, drugstore, and publications. The firm helped earn Durham its national reputation as “Black Wall Street” and the “Capital of the Black Middle Class.” When famed African American leader W. E. B. Du Bois visited Durham in 1912, he observed an unparalleled level of black entrepreneurship, with North Carolina Mutual in the vanguard of the enterprise."

Durham became a national magnet for prominent black leaders, who celebrated the city as a model of racial pride. The city attracted the attention of famous visitors who gave positive reviews of the city that were based on the N. C. Mutual business. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, two of the most important black leaders in the 1900s visited Durham County on separate occasions and made comments about the state of the city and its black community.

Booker T. Washington was an advocate for avoiding confrontation with racist whites and instead emphasized long-term educational and economic advancement in the black community. He claimed after his visit that Durham "was the city of cities to look for prosperity of the Negroes and the greatest amount of friendly feeling between the two races of the South." Black entrepreneurs such as Merrick and Moore had not simply enjoyed the fruits of their efforts for themselves, but instead had spread it among all of Durham's people. Even the impoverished in Durham had living conditions surpassing those of the poor black communities in the larger southern cities at the time. Washington, who had expected to find the poorer blacks of Durham to be in shoddy state, notes in his writing that he "drove through their section of the city, observing closely their houses inside and out," and goes on to explain that the neighborhood was in such good state that he "almost doubted [his] eyes." This poorer class of blacks, which Washington describes as the class upon which "the real estimate of [African Americans] is generally formed," was thriving in Durham and gave off a "general healthy appearance." The reason for this was the care of prominent black leaders in the city and the relations between white and black people in the area, both of which were pillars in the formation and mission of North Carolina Mutual.

W.E.B. Du Bois had a different approach, supporting agitation to demand full civil rights for blacks—yet he also celebrated Durham. Reflecting on his visit to Durham, he notes that the "social and economic development [of African American people in the city] is perhaps more striking than that of any similar group in the nation." He goes on to mention the actions of C. C. Spaulding, then general manager of N. C. Mutual, who took children from a school to town "to show them what colored People were doing in Durham." He saw Spaulding's action as an abnormal display of care within the African American community. Du Bois praised the success of North Carolina Mutual and commends the company for avoiding common pitfalls. He specifically attributed the success of Durham as a whole to the drive of Merrick, Moore, and Spaulding. Du Bois believed that their ingenuity in the formation of N. C. Mutual was the beginning and cornerstone of "the economic building of black Durham" for which the city came to be known.

-Photograph - NC State Archives

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Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/.../North_Carolina_Mutual_Life...

Source: https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../n-c-mutual-and-providence...