Black Business in the New South: A Social History of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, by Walter Weare (TPB, 1993, $2.50)
Booker T. Washington urged self-help between blacks, because no one else would. During Reconstruction energy was spent on politics and civil rights, not on developing black self-help institutions. As race relations regressed at the end of reconstruction, interest in self-help measures returned. Mutual benefit societies grew into new insurance societies. North Carolina Mutual, founded in 1898, would last while many of her early sisters did not. NCM sold policies to blacks when white companies would not, and NCM sold them cheaper. Gradually new problems arrived. Would NCM become too "white?" Would it stay too "black" and not be able to compete with the larger white insurance companies? After segregation ended, how could the company keep its black base, and yet integrate? Was WCM exploiting its black customers? What about those new white shareholders and customers? What about those larger white companies now offering lower rates to black customers? The world was changing. Would NCM be able to change with it?
The answer, taken from its internet site, is uncertain. Last year in 2010 the company made a profit. The eight years before that it did not. Keep your fingers crossed that they make it. This story of a brave experiment can be found in the Afro-American section. (Avail. 9/7)
