By Chilaeya Ezell

Community Historian, Gary Flowers, shares a story about Maggie Walker during our Walking the Ward tour.

In downtown Richmond, Virginia, a short walk up the street from the poshly pink Quirk Hotel, stands a ten-foot bronze statue of Maggie Walker. Overlooking the intersection of West Broad St and North Adams St, Maggie keeps an observant eye on passersby; her determined stature, centered within the memorial plaza built in her honor, serves as a source of encouragement to those looking to forge their path. A three-minute walk away, Maggie’s likeness graces one side of the Consolidated Bank & Trust historical marker, installed on the Emmett C. Burke Clock Tower - a reminder to resident entrepreneurs, local businessmen and women, and any who may pass that we do not have to choose between individual success and the upliftment of our communities. A reminder that the individual and the community are intertwined; that uplifting and supporting one another yields success for each other.

Entrepreneur. Activist. Educator. Ancestor.

The threads of Maggie Lena Walker’s presence are intricately woven through the fabric of Richmond’s painfully complex and richly influential Black history. Mid-summer of this year, Visit Richmond and BLK RVA invited three of our Culture Travels writers, myself included, to experience the city and become familiar with its culture. During this trip, I witnessed how her threads continue to weave the success of Richmond's Black community.

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Walking into Urban Hang Suite feels like being embraced in a deep, welcoming hug of culture. Nestled within Richmond’s historic Jackson Ward, the coffee shop greets its patrons with vibrant art installations from various Black artists and scents of espresso dancing in the air.

I enjoyed Urban Hang Suite’s Dirty Boss latte and lox bagel while listening to owner Kelli Lemon recount her path to opening the coffee shop and what it means to be a Richmonder. “I’m a proud Black Virginian because culture started here [and] I wanted this to feel like a place where the ancestors could meet Biggie.”

The Culture Travels team visits Urban Hang Suite and meets Kelli (second from the left).

Kelli is quite petite in stature - from what I recall when hugging her, she likely only sees five feet on her best days - but sitting beneath a wall covered in what appeared to be every VIBE magazine ever published, all from her personal collection, her presence captures and engulfs you. Her voice confidently projected, causing those around to take notice and heed her sincerity. Her expressive face and hand gestures emphasized her passion and unapologetic commitment to the Black community as she spoke. Kelli spoke of Black resilience, Black joy, and Black prosperity. She spoke of the roadblocks overcome as she co-founded Richmond Black Restaurant Experience and how through perseverance and collaboration with other Black entrepreneurs and community members the organization has attained, and sustained success.

When asked what keeps her motivated Kelli paused and smiled. “I just think to myself, 'What would Maggie do?’”

Born in 1864, Maggie Lena Walker was exposed to entrepreneurship and racial disparities from an early age. Following the death of her husband, Maggie’s mother began her own small laundry business as a way to provide for herself and her two children. An adolescent Maggie assisted in the family business by returning clean laundry to their white patrons, revealing the economic and social disparity between Richmond Blacks and whites. A revelation that left lasting impressions on Maggie and led her, a Black woman, to become a preeminent business leader in United States history.

As a Black woman born into poverty in post-Civil War Virginia, Maggie was directly faced with political, social, and economic barriers, and yet, in her lifetime she was pivotal in the establishment of a vast number of endeavors that advanced the Black community in Richmond.

Elected to grand secretary of the Independent Order of Saint Luke in 1899, Maggie pulled the fraternal society from the brink of bankruptcy, collecting nearly $3.5 million and building up nearly $100,000 in reserve during the twenty-five years she was in leadership. Before this still, Maggie’s work within the order saw her founding a bank, opening a department store, publishing a newspaper, and organizing an insurance company within Richmond’s Jackson Ward neighborhood - once regarded as the “Harlem of the South” - helping solidify it as the hub of Black business and culture in Richmond.

That extraordinary success was not without challenge. At the time, Virginia’s white community was reactionary to Black success and Jim Crow laws made it easy for discriminatory practices and flagrant injustices to take place. To force her department store out of business, white business owners boycotted her suppliers. The state government posed challenges as well, passing a mandate requiring the separation of fraternal societies and financial institutions - Maggie’s business savvy allowed her to get the bank in compliance quickly, becoming, what proved to later be quite successful, Consolidated Bank and Trust Company.

Like Maggie did then, today Kelli proves that with steadfastness, the Black community can achieve independent and sustainable economic and societal success.

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“People desire to be well and to be happy, they just need a space…my role is to create the space for healing and where the work can occur.” Within The Well Collective exists a culture that prioritizes the experiences of each individual and, as founder and CEO Ashley Williams went on to explain, provides space for us “to work together to reimagine and reclaim and restore, not just Richmond’s history and our experience in Richmond, but also America’s history.”

A sense of reverence and calm held my hand as Ashley guided us. Healing arts, group classes, restorative circles - there was space for it all. The exposed brick and deep wooden paneling a backdrop for large cloths of tribal print and hand-written affirmations from patrons which adorned the walls.

Symbolically, The Well Collective is situated within Shockoe Bottom. Its current location is believed to have been part of the slave market and still contains many of the bricks from its original build. Once the center of Richmond’s slave trade - second in importance to only New Orleans during the mid-1800s - slave-trade auction houses, offices and residences for slave traders, and jails for enslaved people were throughout Shockoe Bottom. Even with its present-day commercial and residential development, Shockoe Bottom is still, for many, associated with suffering, injustice, and resistance to slavery. As we took in the space, a group of students entered the upstairs room of The Well Collective to begin their restorative work following a day of learning about Richmond’s slave trade industry - history and healing, reclaiming, and restoring.

Standing outside The Well Collective’s future location, housed in a building with historic significance as the site of the First Bank of Virginia

A short walk up East Main Street, The Well Collective’s future location is also of historical significance - the site of the First Bank of Virginia. As she ushered us through the front door Ashley proudly exclaimed, “A Black woman owning the First Bank of Virginia in Shockoe Bottom…I’d like to think Maggie Walker would be proud.”

With the founding of Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in 1903, Maggie Walker became the first woman of any race to charter a bank in the United States. Through The St. Luke Herald, the newspaper which she began publishing just a year before the founding of the bank, Maggie encouraged Richmond’s Black citizens to establish their institutions so they could harness their economic power.

Following the bank and the newspaper, the Saint Luke Emporium, a department store, completed Maggie’s trifecta of economic independence for the Black community of Richmond. For Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank, Maggie professed, “Let us put our moneys together; let us use our moneys; let us put our money out at usury among ourselves, and reap the benefit ourselves…Let us have a bank that will take the nickels and turn them into dollars.”

Her call to action wasn’t reserved for adults. Maggie encouraged children to also open bank accounts - forming their foundation of financial literacy and instilling in them the importance of achieving their economic independence. The success of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank played a pivotal role in the stability and longevity of the area’s Black middle class; it facilitated an increase in Black home ownership (over 600 mortgages to Black families issued by 1920) and employed Black workers so they had an opportunity to leave menial, labor-intensive jobs.

Maggie’s strategic planning prowess served the bank well as, following the Virginia state mandate requiring the separation of fraternal societies and financial institutions, it merged with two other banks to create the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company in 1930 ensuring the bank survived the Great Depression, a time when many banks failed. The bank was, and continues to be, a source of pride for Black Richmonders.

In 2005, when purchased by Abigail Adams National Bank (a white-owned bank holding company), Consolidated Bank and Trust Company was the oldest Black-run, independently-owned bank in the United States. Its legacy is a reminder of the impact Maggie Walker’s vision had on the community and an inspiration for Richmonders like Ashley whose own visions are set on creating collaborative efforts where radical change meets restorative healing.

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The colored beads of a dozen bracelets covered her forearm; her golden locs danced in the grass. Kneeling on her patchwork tribal print skirt, Janine Bell led us in a prayer of gratitude before the James River - showing reverence and giving thanks to the Native ancestors who called these lands home long before our African ancestors were thrust upon it and painted as commodities to be a dehumanized labor force. We knelt in a semi-circle before her as Janine spoke in a language foreign to our ears and poured water first in front and then on either side of her. Cool droplets hit our faces as she gently flicked water our way, signaling that it was time to begin our walk on the Richmond Slave Trail.

Janine leads us in a prayer of gratitude before walking the Richmond Slave Trails

The Richmond Slave Trail is included within the Elegba Folklore Society’s tour In the Beginning…Virginia, Along the Trail of Enslaved Africans. A public charity and educational organization for over thirty years, the Elegba Folklore Society has positioned itself as Richmond’s year-round lively celebration of African and African American culture, offering performances and festivals, heritage tours and immersive experiences, and an intentionally curated shop. Through the Elegba Folklore Society, Richmonders and tourists alike can better appreciate the present by walking through the past.

And so, we walked.

In Yoruba, Elegba is an intercessor who opens the doors and crossroads between the human and divine realms, bringing clarity to those traveling. Janine was our intercessor. Our left hand placed upon the waist of the person in front of us, our right holding their shoulder we walked, mirroring how our enslaved ancestors walked this very trail - chains forcefully binding them together. Channeling an enslaved daughter, separated from her mother and forced along this trail nearly two centuries prior, Janine recounted her words; inflection conveying her pain and confusion, deep cries of anguish and whimpers of sorrow emphasizing each step. Our tour took us to other locations throughout Richmond - the Virginia Capitol and Thomas Jefferson’s Temple to Democracy, the Richmond Slavery Reconciliation Statue (one of three identical statues, the others in Liverpool, England and the Republic of Benin), the Henry ‘Box’ Brown memorial - but this walk is what has remained with me most. “For many of us,” Janine said as we returned to our vehicle, “our history starts in 1619 in Point Comfort on our knees. How can we ever stand if we think we started on our knees?”

Through tours, such as their In the Footsteps of Maggie Walker, and festivals, like their Down Home Family Reunion, a Celebration of African American Folklife, the Elegba Folklore Society celebrates ways our ancestors stood and we continue to stand today, offering joy and happiness to those willing to take the walk.

Gary Flowers is the Jackson Ward Community Historian

Gary Flowers, a self-proclaimed history nerd and fourth-generation Jackson Ward resident, also led us on a walk via his tour Walking the Ward with Gary Flowers. Our tour began, and ended, at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia, another Richmond site uniquely tied to Maggie Walker. The museum was founded and opened to the public in 1988 in a house on Clay Street. Built-in 1932 as the home of Adolph Dill, the Clay Street house was previously owned by the Council for Colored Women, who had purchased it in 1922 under Maggie Walker’s leadership. In 2016, the museum moved to its current home on West Leigh Street in what was formerly the Leigh Street Armory. A successful brick contractor, Armstead Walker, Maggie’s husband, was the brickwork contractor for the armory when it was originally built in 1895; the original exterior brick remains.

We leaned in intently as, atop the museum’s steps, Gary detailed how fundamental the James River was to slavery in the United States; how Broad Street, now a bustling part of downtown, was used to separate white Richmonders from everyone else; and why Jackson Ward was ground-zero of the American Revolution. Gary tested our knowledge of U.S. history with his pop-quiz questions - stumbling through decades of memories, my peers and I worked together to arrive at the correct answers. “What did the Fifteenth Amendment do?” “Granted the right for Black men to vote.” His eyes squinted and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly as, referencing the Thirteenth Amendment, he reminded us that voting was granted as a privilege, not an inalienable right. Back and forth between information and questions until, dashing down the museum steps, he finally exclaimed, “Follow me to freedom!”

In our time with them, Gary and Janine taught us about the deep history of Blacks in Richmond and how the stories and places were woven not only into the history of Virginia but in all of us. It’s estimated that one in every four Black people can trace their lineage to Richmond. This is our history, these are our ancestors.

Maggie Walker was also a teacher. After graduating from Richmond Colored Normal School in 1883, Maggie taught for three years at Valley School. Though, following her marriage to Armstead Walker, a school policy forbidding the employment of married women forced her to quit her formal teaching position, Maggie continued to educate others through her business endeavors and activism.

A vocal activist against discrimination and segregation, Maggie engaged in civic issues throughout her life. She founded the Council of Colored Women and was a co-founder and served as Vice President of the Richmond chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Maggie was an organizer of the 1904 boycott against Virginia Passenger and Power Company’s segregated seating policy - a boycott which led to the company going out of business the following year. She was a significant contributor to the Industrial Home for Wayward Girls and organized the first Black Girl Scout troop in the South.

Within each position held, Maggie taught Black men, women, and children they were worthy of a life that was their own. In the presence of her own personal trials and despite political challenges and societal barriers, Maggie persevered - teaching naysayers that Black prosperity was not an anomaly and is everlasting. Maggie’s significant contributions to business are only compounded by her unwavering life-long commitment to the advancement and security of the Black community.

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As I witness the current political, social, and economic state of our country I, at times, find myself succumbing to feelings of hopelessness and fear. Burdens carried with me daily, compounded by overwhelming rage and anguish when I read about the Sonya Masseys and the Darryl Georges. In those moments, when I find myself tempted to resign to a nihilistic mindset, I reflect on my visit to Richmond. I recall the tenacity of Kelli and the compassion of Ashley. I remember the reverence of Janine and the passion of Gary. They are oars with which I can navigate my boat towards the actions, I am certain, are what Maggie would do.