Browne, William Washington
1849-1897 · Contribution: 1888-1897
Founded the Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain, United Order of True Reformers, the first Black-owned bank chartered in the United States, establishing the model Maggie Lena Walker, already profiled in this collection, would later follow in Richmond
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- Business & Misc.
Impact on the world
Browne created the institutional blueprint for Black banking in America, a self-controlled financial system where Black depositors' money was free from white oversight. W.E.B. Du Bois called his organization 'probably the most extraordinary Negro organization in the country.'
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