institutions and community development organizations because they are better than mainstream banks at lending to minorities. The company also said that it would be depositing more in the future. Whether we are black, white or another race or ethnicity, we too might want to consider banking black. It’s a great opportunity to make an impact and help establish a more equitable economy. For a list of black-owned banks and credit unions, visit https://investopedia.com/black -owned-banks-by-state5024944 and scroll down toward the bottom of the page.
BERNARD GARRETT
THE BLACK BANKER WHO OVERCAME RACISM Had Bernard Garrett, a black millionaire, been born white, he might have been as rich as Warren Buffett. He certainly had the smarts. Born in Willis, a small town in Texas, in 1925, Garrett rose about as high as a black man could in that region in that era. He ran a cleaning business, but that wasn't enough. Garrett moved his family to California, then as now seen as the land of golden opportunity, in 1945, again starting out in the cleaning business but soon branching out into real estate, buying apartment buildings for blacks with the profits of the business and a rare white banker who loaned him money to purchase the building. By 1954, Garrett, now a millionaire, was ready for his biggest investment: Los Angeles' Bankers Building, the city's tallest, which he purchased with the use of a straw buyer, someone white who pretended to be the front man, while the real owners, Garrett and his partner, Joseph B. Morris, pretended to be the janitors, as selling to blacks was frowned upon at the time. It would be a tactic Garrett would continue to use when he entered the banking business in his native Texas. “I had a desire to return to Houston, Texas, the place of my birth to give relief to local colored people who were having great difficulty obtaining real estate loans,” he once said.
BOSTON'S ONEUNITED, THE LARGEST BLACK-OWNED BANK, WITH ASSETS OF $661.2 MILLION
Beginning in 1963, Garrett, again using whites as front men, bought two savings and loan institutions, Main Land Bank & Trust Co. in Texas City, and First National Bank of Marlin. The banks were instrumental in providing often life-saving loans to African Americans squeezed out of the borrowing market by white banks due to their race. Garrett was in the process of creating an even bigger banking and real estate empire when he ran into legal roadblocks put in place by powerful politicians, including Sen. John McClellan (D-Ark.), a Southern segregationist. Convicted in 1965 of misapplying $189,000 in bank funds, Garrett served nine months of a three-year sentence.
CITIZENS BANK OF NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, THE OLDEST continuously operating BLACK-OWNED BANK, OPENED IN 1904 BAVUAL
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The banking and real estate pioneer tried to put together other big deals, including the formation of a bank in The Bahamas; however, with a criminal conviction on his record, he was unable to obtain a charter. He died in Los Angeles in 1999, nearly forgotten until he was rediscovered decades later by black capitalists seeking to follow in his footsteps. SPRING 2023
