Advertisement

Header Utility Menu

  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Events

LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Instagram Get Our App

  • Login

Virginia Business

Mobile Menu

  • Issues
  • Industries
    • Banking/Finances
    • Business Law
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Economic Development
    • Education
    • Energy/Green
    • Federal Contracting
    • Government
    • Healthcare
    • Hotels/Tourism
    • Insurance
    • Ports/Trade
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Transportation
  • Regions
    • Central Virginia
    • Eastern Virginia
    • Northern Virginia
    • Roanoke/New River Valley
    • Shenandoah Valley
    • Southern Virginia
    • Southwest Virginia
  • Reports
    • Best Places to Work
    • Business Person of the Year
    • CEO Pay
    • Coronavirus 2020
    • Generous Virginians Project
    • Legal Elite
    • Most Influential Virginians
    • Maritime Guide
    • Site Locator
    • The Big Book
    • Virginia CFO Awards
  • Company News
    • For the Record
    • People
  • Opinion
  • Lists
  • Awards/Events
    • Diversity Leadership Series
    • Vote Now for Women in Leadership
    • Virginia 500
    • Legal Elite
    • CFO Awards
    • Big Book of Lists
    • 100 People To Meet
    • Best Places To Work
  • Virginia 500
    • Read the issue
    • Order a copy
    • Buy an award plaque
    • Nominate execs for 2021

Advertisement

Header Primary Menu

  • virginiabusiness.com
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Home Opinion inside view Statue will honor business leader in a city of monuments

Statue will honor business leader in a city of monuments

Published November 30, 2015 by Robert Powell, III

A bust of Maggie L. Walker stands outside the Richmond
school bearing her name. Photo by Rick DeBerry

Richmond is filled with monuments, and sometimes they make news.

When cycling’s world championships were held in the city during September, a group protested a race route circling the statues of Jefferson Davis, Jeb Stuart and Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue.

The protest echoed a national outcry against the display of Confederate symbols after the massacre of nine people in June at an African-American church in Charleston, S.C. Some critics urged Richmond to remove Confederate statues from Monument Avenue, putting them in museums instead.

Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones offered a different solution. “Rather than tearing down, we should be building up in ways that establish a proper sense of balance and fairness by recognizing heroes from all eras to tell a richer and more accurate story of Virginia’s history,” he said in a statement to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

In October, the city revealed plans for a statue dedicated not to a politician or a general but a Richmond business leader who used private enterprise to improve people’s lives.

That business leader was Maggie L. Walker (1864-1934), the first African-American woman to found a bank in the U.S. She also was a national leader in groups fighting segregation and promoting the empowerment of women.

The site picked for the statue is a triangle-shaped plaza off West Broad Street not far from where Walker’s bank operated in Richmond’s Jackson Ward. That choice raised some eyebrows, because the mayor had mentioned a Walker statue as a possible way to increase diversity on Monument Avenue.

If the Walker statue were placed on Monument Avenue, it would be the second commemorating an African-American and the first honoring a woman.

A statue of African-American tennis champion Arthur Ashe, a Richmond native, was erected in 1996 amid a storm of controversy. While the Richmond City Council and the Ashe family supported placing the statue on Monument Avenue, multiple factions were opposed, with some advocating alternative sites as more appropriate and others calling for a different statue design.

Unlike Ashe, Walker had a personal connection to the Civil War. She was born during the war to a former slave who was assistant cook in the Richmond mansion of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union spy. (An unforgiving city government tore down Van Lew’s home after her death in 1900.)

The young Maggie Mitchell was a teacher for three years before marrying brick contractor Armstead Walker Jr.  After her marriage, she increased her involvement in the Independent Order of St. Luke, a fraternal society she had joined as a teenager. In 1899, she was named to the organization’s top position, executive secretary, and held the post for the rest of her life.

Under Walker’s leadership, St. Luke flourished and branched out into businesses that could aid its members. She established a newspaper to advertise black businesses and started a large department store to sell inexpensive goods and provide employment for women.

In 1903, she founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank with the goal of pooling members’ money to provide them with loans. The bank later became Consolidated Bank & Trust, the oldest continually operated African-American bank in the country until its sale in 2009.

Walker began these ventures at a time when no women were allowed to vote and Jim Crow laws were tightening their grip on African-Americans across the South.

Walker wasn’t a passive observer of these conditions. She served on the boards of the National Association of Colored Women, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Virginia Interracial Commission. Late in life, she became a role model for the disabled, continuing to travel and give speeches despite having to use a wheelchair.
Walker’s two-story Victorian house in Jackson Ward is preserved as she left it as a National Historical Site by the National Park Service. Nonetheless, she likely is best known in her hometown as the namesake of a school. 

In 1937, three years after her death, Maggie Walker High School was founded as one of Richmond’s two black high schools. It produced a long list of notable alumni, including Ashe, pro football Hall-of-Famer Willie Lanier and NBA star Bob Dandridge before it closed in the 1990s.

In 2001, the building was brought back to life as the renovated home for a regional governor’s school. Today, the Maggie L. Walker School for Government and International Studies often is ranked among best high schools in the nation. (In the interest of full disclosure, both of my daughters are graduates of the school, and I have contributed to its foundation.)

In announcing plans for her statue, Jones described Walker as “a revolutionary leader in business, a champion for breaking down barriers between communities and showed incredible strength as a person that came out of extraordinarily challenging circumstances to create great things.”

A statue honoring that kind of courage and initiative is good news for a city of monuments.

Related Stories

Virginia Business logo

A Clinton scenario could have ripple effects in Virginia

Virginia Business logo

Six-week class was life changing

Danville refuses to be debate talking point

Trending

Finance/Insurance: STEPHAN Q. CASSADAY

Finance/Insurance: PAUL B. MANNING

Federal Contractors/Technology: JASON PROVIDAKES

Education: ANNE M. KRESS

Artemis I to launch with help from Va. contractors

Sponsored Stories

Why is my Less Than Truckload (LTL) freight pricing going up and my service level going down?  

Beyond Juneteenth – How Capital One is Commemorating and Implementing Change

How We Help Your Business Operate Better

Before the Breach: Get Serious About Cyber Resilience

Professionals are Discovering What it Means to Live Uniquely in the Alleghany Highlands of Virginia

Riverside Logistics Celebrates 25th Anniversary!

Girls for a Change Empowers Black Youth for the Future Workforce

The Jackson Ward Collective is equipping Black-owned small businesses with the tools for success

Advertisement

Advertisement

Trending

Finance/Insurance: STEPHAN Q. CASSADAY

Finance/Insurance: PAUL B. MANNING

Federal Contractors/Technology: JASON PROVIDAKES

Education: ANNE M. KRESS

Artemis I to launch with help from Va. contractors

Sponsored Stories

Why is my Less Than Truckload (LTL) freight pricing going up and my service level going down?  

Beyond Juneteenth – How Capital One is Commemorating and Implementing Change

How We Help Your Business Operate Better

Before the Breach: Get Serious About Cyber Resilience

Professionals are Discovering What it Means to Live Uniquely in the Alleghany Highlands of Virginia

Riverside Logistics Celebrates 25th Anniversary!

Girls for a Change Empowers Black Youth for the Future Workforce

The Jackson Ward Collective is equipping Black-owned small businesses with the tools for success

Get Virginia Business directly on your tablet or in your mailbox!

Subscribe to Virginia Business

Advertisement

Advertisement

Footer Primary Menu

  • virginiabusiness.com
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Footer Secondary Menu

  • Industries
  • Regions
  • Reports
  • Company News
  • Events

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Sign Up

LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Instagram Get Our App

Privacy Policy Cookie Policy

Footer Utility Menu

Copyright © 2023 Virginia Business. All rights reserved.

Site Maintained by TechArk