Ecosystem Builders from History: Maggie Lena Walker
Do you know the incredible story of entrepreneur Maggie Lena Walker? She is credited with being a civil rights activist and entrepreneur but she really deserves another title: that of an ecosystem builder.
"Madam Walker" was born in 1867 in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother was once a slave and her father was an Irish journalist (back then, it was illegal to marry someone of another race). At a young age, Maggie's father was found dead in the James River. It was ruled a suicide, however the family believed it to be a murder. Her father’s death left her mother with two small children to feed. The family got by doing laundry for her mother’s laundry business.
“I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but with a laundry basket practically on my head.” - Maggie Walker
Education was important to Walker’s mother and so Maggie was sent to school to ensure she got an education. The night before she graduated from school in 1883, she joined her classmates in one of the first recorded school strikes by African Americans in the U.S. They were protesting the separation of black and white student graduation ceremonies.
Walker then became a teacher and took business classes at night. She had to give up her teaching job after getting married because the law forbid married women from teaching. Instead of settling down as a wife and mother, Walker started volunteering at the Independent Order of St. Luke (IOSL). It was there that she sought to expand the organization and strengthen its services - especially in the areas of education and employment for women.
Walker was not only able to significantly increase membership, she was able to create employment opportunities for women and establish an educational loan fund for needy children. She rose through the ranks to become the "Right Worthy Grand Secretary of the Order" - the highest rank at IOSL. In that role, Maggie founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, becoming the first woman to charter a bank in the United States. She also founded the St. Luke Herald, where she served as editor, as well as the Emporium department store, an alternative to the white store where so many were discriminated. The Penny Saving’s Bank eventually merged to become The Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, the oldest continuously existing black-owned and black-run bank in the United States.
“What do we need to further develop and prosper us, numerically and financially? First we need a savings bank, chartered, officered and run by the men and women of this Order. Let us put our money's together; let us use our money's. … Let us have a bank that will take the nickels and turn them into dollars.”
Walker also fought hard against discrimination. She organized boycotts, spearheaded voter registration drives after the 19th amendment passed, cofounded the Richmond Chapter of the NAACP, ran for superintendent of public instruction, and for Governor of Virginia.