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Apr 15, 2021 · But, there were other wealthy Black women and men before her. In his book, Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires...
- Sean Yoes
- William Leidesdorff
- John Stanly
- Jeremiah Hamilton
- Mary Ellen Pleasant
- Robert Reed Church
- Madam C.J. Walker
- Daniel Murray
- Scholarship Around Black Capitalism
- The Bottom Line
William Alexander Leidesdorff (1810-1848) was likely America's first Black millionaire. Leidesdorff, who had immigrated to the U.S. from the Danish West Indies, owned the first steamship in San Francisco Bay. He also accomplished a list of other notable firsts, including setting up the first public school in California, as well as creating the firs...
John Carruthers Stanly (1774-1845) was a mixed-race former slave who himself became perhaps the biggest slaveowner in North Carolina. Upon being freed, Stanly became a barber, a relatively stable trade at that time. Eventually, he was able to purchase his wife and children's freedom. Stanly would come to own two plantations on Bachelor's Creek alon...
Jeremiah Hamilton (1806-1875), "Wall Street's first Black trader," made his fortune in New York in the 19th century. Not much is known about Hamilton's early life, but he immigrated to New York after fleeing Haiti, where he was helping to bring in counterfeit coins for a consortium of New York merchants. Litigious, secretive, and shrewd, Hamilton c...
Mary Ellen Pleasant (1815-1904) was the most powerful Black woman operating in San Francisco in the heat of California's Gold Rush. She may have been born a slave, but by the 1820s,she was living in New England and was involved with the Underground Railroad. While there, she married James Smith, who left her a significant amount of money upon his d...
Robert Reed Church, Sr. (1839-1912), was born to a White steamboat captain and an enslaved seamstress in Mississippi. Reed was enslaved after being captured while serving as a steward on the Victona steamer during the Civil War. After being freed, he settled in Memphis. He made his money primarily in real estate, but he also ran a hotel and other b...
The title of millionaire serves a financial, technical designation and also a cultural one. It denotes someone with an unusually high net worth who enjoys the freedoms and pleasures associated with that net worth. Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919), who started life as a Louisiana sharecropper born to formerly enslaved parents in 1867, is usually cited ...
Daniel A.P. Murray (1852-1925) was a librarian at the Library of Congress for more than a half-century. Murray climbed the social order of Washington, D.C., after catching the attention of a senator and a Librarian of Congress. Eventually, he made a fortune as a business owner and developer. Murray is mostly remembered now for advancing the literar...
Until relatively recently, historical accounts neglected the role Black businesspeople played in the creation of American capitalism. Black business was an object of study for writers like W.E.B. Du Bois, with high points in the second half of the 20th century. Nonetheless, prior to Juliet Walker’s 1998 book, "The History of Black Business in Ameri...
Black Americans have an entrepreneurial tradition stretching back into slavery and a distinguished list of early millionaires, beginning in the 19th century. Nevertheless, the racial wealth gappersists. But perhaps the 21st century will finally see it disappear as there is now a growing list of Black millionaires and even some billionaires.
Jan 29, 2019 · by Shomari Wills. The astonishing untold history of America’s first black millionaires—former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century, from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring Twenties—self-made entrepreneurs whose unknown success mirrored that of American business heroes such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison.
Feb 5, 2024 · Before Christopher Columbus, Africans arrived in the Americas. A full two centuries prior to Christopher Columbus “discovering” the Americas, evidence suggests that West Africans had already traveled over the Atlantic to reach the New World. Okay, let’s take a step back and discuss the definition of “discovery” alone. The act or process of discovering someone […]
Aug 9, 2023 · Stacker compiled a list of the 10 richest Black Americans using data from Forbes. Individuals were ranked by their overall wealth ranking, with the richest person taking the #1 spot....
Oct 9, 2014 · A second tier of high-value souls were known as “No. 1 men,” worth $1,400-$1,500, and “No. 1 women,” worth $1,275-$1,325. After depreciation by age, abuse and overwork, they were demoted ...
May 4, 2021 · The arrival in Virginia in the early 1600s of “20. and odd negroes,” as John Rolfe announced, is often taken as the beginning of what we might call Black America—from that 20 to nearly 47 ...
