Center for Global Security analysis and our wonderful partners, the museum of American Finance and the society of new york whose cosponsoring todays conversation. One of the goals of the centennial series is to shine the light on the importance history plays in shaping the future. In the latest book black women in u. S. Finance before the new deal, she explores a period of financial innovation and its Transformative Impact on u. S. Capitalism. Todays session will take place in three parts. First, my colleague and friend, president and ceo of the museum of American Finance and we will introduce doctor garrett scott. Then she will discuss her book banking on freedom. Following this discussion, david and i will facilitate audience questions. We ask that you type your questions in the q and a section near the bottom of the screen. I am also excited to share that as a participant of todays webinar, you will be entered into a raffle to win a free copy of the book banking on freedom. Winners will be notified by the end of the week. And finally, before i turn over to david to do a formal introduction, i do want to remind everyone that both the school and the museum rely on your Financial Support to continue the mission. So i encourage you to take some time to think about a donation to both of our outstanding organizations. Now i would like to turn over to david. Thank you, donna and its always great to be back with you and the friends we have and of course the cfa. Our speaker today is a native that received her phd at the university of texas and currently a professor at ole ms. , the university of mississippi. In her research and writing she brings to the floor the issues of race, gender and capitalism. The Research Behind this book is incredible. There are over 475 detailed footnotes read the book has received much praise including awards from the organization of american historians, the association of black women historians, the historical associations best book and southern economic history and it was also on the shortlist for the prize for the best book in Business History in 2020. Welcome. Thank you so much for the wonderful introduction and also thank you for inviting me and everyone who made this possible. I will share my stream and we will go ahead and get started i appreciate people taking time out of their busy schedules to spend at learning more about black womens contributions to finance. So today, i will talk for about 35 minutes and talk about the world of finance in harlem before the stock market crash focusing on one company and use it to explore how black women use Financial Institutions that they lead and control to challenge the strength of jim crow and sexism and economic exploitation to use companies to carve out possibilities for themselves with us economy and society and they understood that motions and ideas the risks were shaped by gender and race along the economic ladder not just by these factors and processes but taking an active role of risk and opportunity and although i acknowledge those limitations that they face because of race and gender and class i want to demonstrate how black women defined their value with those messages they received with citizens and economic actors also with the larger us economy so we should have a good amount of time left for questions and answers. The best way to understand the corporations through two women who were vitally important that is Charity Jones so in the next slide he will see two images. So we will start by imagining there currently lives in new york the challenges that black women face of how the Harlem Branch and then to talk about the successes and the challenges that they face especially the finance Corporation Board comprised of almost family of women so lets get started. Charity. Charity hesitated a moment before she stepped onto the dusty dirt street. What am i doing she thought to herself . This is stupid and between her old life that laid behind her and this awful new place. The smell and the noise and the people. So many buzzing like flies rising from the street and this is 1885 and charity paused for a while with the streetcar beckoning and she glanced back when she returned to eight dead babies . All of them taking from her those that would never toddle a few steps so she drew in her breath and put her feet on the ground and did not look back with the streetcar windows coming from back home. But lulu hesitated a moment before she stepped onto the wooden floor and then those people tightening together this was harlem 1916 with those backstage goings on so lulu drew in her breath darkness swallowed up the side of the stage where she stood only a moment ago and dared not look back that holding onto silence. And they had very different experiences so they did share some important things in common of course charitys only child, a son with hundreds of thousands of other black women they also left the south for better lives for the north to escape the humiliating social etiquette and the Sexual Violence of jim crow and excitement and then to share a diversion with a secret society that is founded by black women. So in 1899 it came under the leadership of the ambitious maddie walker. Saint lukes would become one of the most successful black controlled and very few largely black women controlled commercial institutions in the country. With the bank in the Insurance Company and it posted 100,000 members and employed nearly 200 people and the majority of them women and those assets that are equivalent to 31 million. So one important venture and involved lulu and charity and that was the finance corporation headquartered in harlem organized in the late 19 teens in the district of the independent order of st. Lukes reflects the opportunity for women in us finance so a complex tapestry by controlled Financial Institutions including formal banks and Insurance Companies savings clubs, Industrial Loan Association with this complex tapestry to control millions and then around world war i and with these Financial Institutions serve as strategies the st. Lukes finance corporation chose to promote these anxieties a black womens bodies on the urban spaces. And these conflicting tensions as both the victims but also the sources of social disorder so with a stretch these Financial Institutions like the order of st. Lukes . They desire better Career Options they reject the efforts to police their behavior and the way they spend their leisure time and with the promises of investment and then as a way to destroy a the middle of jim crow also growing tired of these pictures that implied that men are the producers and consumers of these products and these markers of citizenship so the Financial Institution that experimented with those ways to raise capital they struggled with the course of the intractable problems and from my book to do with the number of forces so here i will focus on the rise in the fall of the finance corporation. 1916 and the new York District of st. Lukes headquartered in harlem elected a new president. The harlem st. Lukes 3. 45 in the coffers that was more than 500 in debt. But the Ambitious Group of women so in 1981 these Women Incorporated the saint lukes finance Corporation Setting their sites with investment in real estate six of the Seven Members of the finance Corporation Board and Lulu Robinson and jones show the advice of the committee so to turn to charity to help them recruit new members and she solidified her status knowing the mother of st. Lukes in new york and her efforts to membership in the new York District sword in the midst of the great migration. Not the womens charms alone of fuels a resurgence in those members, the square focus, the laser focus on addressing the needs of black women so tested and expanded the boundaries of these organizations this model a black women who do we have scholars talking about the new negro woman with their political importance and then among the priorities and then they desperately needed jobs and housing and then to understand this dilemma intimately i suspect in the mid to late 19 teens like many young black women and with those limited opportunities with Housing Conditions skyrocketing went over placing and overcrowding so Robinson Jones and the other women were able to borrow 3000 from the saint luke think in richmond they were that they were just unable to do so because Real Estate Investment and that was compounded that made the cost of credit and consideration that made the cost of credit and consideration envisioning and then to understand the business of leisure in harlem and arranged these Fundraising Affairs combining entertainment and enterprise to organize the fundraising reception at the manhattan casino with a very famous orchestra so raising enough money to secure a mortgage on the building the former content on west 130th street in 1921 just a few years later a 24 room Apartment Building on west 129 stream that is called the casanova. In 1922 with that former content and the harlem st. Lukes equivalent of the modern dollars on 130th. And then to accommodate everything from pageants and Church Groups to International Delegations the restaurant and retail store on 139th street. With the steel monument of black economic progress of the black community st. Lukes hall became an important center for business and Community Activities and entertainment. So the pastor of First Emmanuel Church has a place for the bootlegging and the pastor of the applicable church in the adopted father called st. Lukes hall nothing less then one of the hellholes of god. And the Office Spaces in st. Lukes hall and they ran the numbers game the highly profitable lottery it was very popular. So in the business of leisure both in the formal and extralegal economies in harlem. Lets recount. So in 1918 and within a few years to make that ambitious and lucrative Real Estate Investment so by 1929 little more than a decade st. Lukes went from being nearly 400 in debt to having women 5 million as a very conservative modernday dollars. These were in parties. And those to reword failure, to leave it undercapitalized and to generate more than 10000 of annual profits and that attempt is 120,000 of modernday dollars fermenting spaces in the hall and with those revenues to provide jobs of two dozen employees that public commitment with charitable assistance so safe affordable quality housin housing, retail spaces offering fair prices with a variety of goods and services of good paying stable jobs respectable and not so respectable of leisure activities these are important priorities for black women in particular in black communities in general these were social economic and political concerns that animated the women who were leading the st. Lukes finance corporation so the equivalent of one. 2 Million Dollars of modernday dollars from a bond offering the incredible amount of money they were able to raise the democratization among communities or me say that another way it demonstrates the ways that investing more popular were accessible for most africanamericans and also revealed a commitment to their commitment to selfhelp so to highlight black peoples participation with investment and get rich quick schemes one. 2 Million Dollars 1000 loans with the harlem fortune and also with the creative financing i will not go in detail here but with the schemes of the finance corporation in such a short amount of time so that economic downturn coupled with past investigations to similar organizations like Marcus Garvey and with the financial schemes and those other organizations and to make st. Lukes formidable and in 1828 the new York State Attorney general began an investigation and then ordered the district to sell the Real Estate Holdings and just as i imagined at the beginning of my talk and Lulu Robinson moving to and through new york city and how they lost the crown jewels she has lost her home and lived in st. Lukes hall. I know that she died in 1929 and still at 127 west 30th street. And then to tell the census taker that she was not working and was unemployed but it is very likely that she never again hold such a powerful position in a multimillion dollar concern. So by illuminating the story of the rise and fall in this serve which the st. Lukes finance corporation to commit these major developments in us history with reconstruction and the gilded age and the great migration and world war i and the new negro era and trying to recover the role that black women played in the development of modern american capitalism i acknowledge that they made i cannot explore the exploitative aspects or the destructive ways the way they severely limited opportunities looking at the saint luke finance corporation we see investment of Institution Building and resistance to stand alongside other kinds of Economic Justice like the Hunger Strike where the boycott that creditors and debtors and consumers with owners of stock and policyholders tried to transform racial capitalism through a women centered articulation of black economic selfdetermination they have to mention where i got the title. I hope you are familiar with the numbers game that was so popular in the late 19th century to the seventies and to play the numbers so if your number hits you can turn pocket change into a couple hundred dollars so a veritable industry arises out love the ease numbers of gains. And those can help you protect your lucky numbers also dream books. So you can look in the dream book and find the combination attached or maybe look up yellow or three numbers associated with yellow and you try looking at these numbers to win so in the twenties and thirties with the explanation dream of colored people to say this is an excellent dream for all promises which is an extraordinary good health with Great Success and to foreigners to the brokenhearted courage. And with that dream Book Description of colored people because i imagine the women of the st. Lukes finance corporation were dreaming of the African American community so thank you all so much thank you for inviting me. It is our pleasure that i cannot leave escape talking about the woman that adorns the cover of your book. It is amazing her circumstances born and raised and the place you may be able to visit and on a more sober note what would she say about whats going on in this country because shes such a focal point. I was telling daisy, we try to have some objectivity, but it is hard not to be so depressed so megan walker was enslaved at the end of the civil war in Richmond Virginia and she said herself grew up with the wash basket on her head not a silver spoon in her mouth and grew up for. But her circumstances in her life shaped her vision, her Economic Vision for black women in particular and was intimately involved independent order of st. Lukes and in 1899 and really transform that organization on its last legs in 1899 and she communicated this vision she wanted to open a store and a factory and a pink and that she succeeded in doing that opening the spiny savings bank in 1983 the first to be led by a black woman and also very active politically and socially all around the country and those really great articles that came out a couple weeks ago the wall street journal that focuses for women in the present day wot revising the work she did at the bank as well as the independent order of st. Lukes Insurance Company and so she always talked about a black womans way of banking and i think we could learn a lot about banking that is attuned to the practical needs of the communities served and that it centers them so i think as the pandemic for example, she would argue about using sounds and lending criteria but kind of you raising some of the structural institutional any qualities that are inherent in things like credit scores, so to look at multiple other kinds of sources to vet peoples credit worthiness. Small investments and what we think of as micro finance today. So, those are the kind of things i think she would, if she were here today, she would look around and be ready to kind of pull up her sleeves and really put her shoulder into kind of a transforming shrinking the racial wealth gap which is what she tried to do in 1903 and definitely in 2020. Thank you so much. A great story with real meaning today. Really incredible. We have a question asking do you know whether any st. Lukes counsel in the northern cities tried to organize similar financial experiments . Yes, i do. I know that in philadelphia some of the largest were harlem and washington, d. C. And i kn