John Merrick (insurance)

Merrick was born into slavery in Clinton, North Carolina on September 7, 1859.[1] Following his emancipation, Merrick learned to read and write at a Reconstructionist school.[2] Most newly freed Black people at this time were merely trying to survive, as they lacked many of the rights that their white counterparts possessed. Black people also faced blunt discrimination and a lack of economic opportunities from biased whites that were opposed to their emancipation. Growing up in this environment, Merrick was forced to begin work at a young age in order to support his parents and siblings. Merrick became a brick mason while simultaneously learning the barber trade “during a lull in construction” in order to make ends meet.[3] In the brickyards, Merrick had a first-hand look at Durham's impoverished black population, “whose improvidence impressed upon his mind the thought of doing something for their protection”.[4] His early jobs paved the way for Merrick's future success as a barbershop entrepreneur and later as a business mogul and philanthropist.

Historic "Black Wall Street" of Durham

Merrick channeled his commercial success back into Durham's African-American community via philanthropy. Most of the influential and powerful American citizens at the time were white and did not care enough to help address the issues of African American poverty, lack of necessary services, and lack of education. In fact, whites went out of their way to degrade blacks by keeping them ignorant and denying them services that we consider second nature today. This is where Merrick stepped in—every company he helped establish provided a necessary service to the African Americans of Durham that they otherwise, in all likelihood, would not have had access to. There is a sense of security that results from knowing one's family will be taken care of financially if one were to meet a tragic fate, and Merrick provided Durham's blacks with this security when he started the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. He was “concerned with providing insurance protection for his race” and used his initial success in the barbershop business to launch a new company that would ease this concern and aid his people.[10] The formation of Merrick's first company served as a transition into other ways that Merrick could help his African American community: he started the Merrick-Moore-Spaulding Real Estate Company in order to provide blacks in Durham with real estate insurance, because “regulations prevented North Carolina Mutual Life from offering” this service to customers.[7] Merrick's formation of the black Mechanics and Farmer's Bank also provided necessary banking services to black citizens in order to stimulate personal and business spending, for in the era following the emancipation of slaves, most white banks in the south refused to loan money to blacks.[7] Additionally, John Merrick's creation of a colored drug store provided Durham's African American population with necessary medicines and remedies that they otherwise would not have access to, for at the time of the store's opening, there was only one African American drug store in Durham, which was “not centrally located for the population”.[1] Finally, Merrick helped “provide a home” for a public library for Durham's African American children and donated $1,000 towards the library's maintenance.[1] Through his philanthropic business ventures and charitable use of his accumulated wealth, Merrick provided the blacks of Durham with many necessary services that they would otherwise be ignorant of and lack access to. Not only did Merrick recirculate his wealth back into the Durham community to increase the quality of life of Durham's black citizens; he also provided them with job opportunities that would not be known by or available to them otherwise. During the Post-Reconstruction era, it was unlikely to see an African American businessman. Although it had been a few decades since black slaves had been freed, they remained at the bottom of the United States' social hierarchy. Racial norms dictated that they were to follow in their relatives’ footsteps—to do the same work that their parents and grandparents had done. This “work” consisted mainly of farming, as most freed slaves became sharecroppers after their emancipation, for farming was all they knew. However, Merrick's many businesses created novel and different job opportunities for blacks that they would not have had access to otherwise.

In 1880, Merrick lived with his wife Martha Hunter Merrick in Raleigh, North Carolina where he attended barbering school. By 1900, the Merrick family included five children—three daughters (Geneva, Mabel and Martha) and two sons (Edward and John). The household also included other extended family members.[12]

A new black middle class emerged in Durham. The city's black elite had the chance to explore the real estate, insurance, banking, and pharmaceutical industries instead of accepting the strenuous, run-of-the-mill jobs that whites did not want. It is noted in Merrick's biography that “young pharmacists” in the black community who did not have an opportunity to practice their trade were finally able to have access to the job that they truly desired with the development of the Bull City Drug Company.[1] Durham's blacks finally had opportunities to explore employment options that would not have been available to them had Merrick not started his many businesses. Merrick's powerful status also served as an example to Durham's black community that they could rise to prominence and achieve entrepreneurial success no matter their skin tone. His financial success and rising influence gave them hope—if John Merrick, a black once bound to slavery, could start his own business and ultimately build an empire, why couldn't they? The Journal of Negro History notes that, because blacks now had opportunities to be employed by new businesses or to create their own businesses, they “emerged into a new social, economic, and intellectual order”.[9] For example, following the successes of Merrick's various companies, some of Durham's other black citizens started a hosiery mill, the success of which was so large that “it soon had a chain of fourteen mills”.[13] John Merrick's example got the ball rolling in black business, creating a unique “black Wall Street”[8] in Durham. Merrick helped create economic prosperity among the blacks of Durham, which laid the foundation for the establishment of a future self-sustaining community of independent, educated, and experienced black businessmen, which served as another small step in the fight for racial equality. John Merrick was an exceptional figure in North Carolina's history. Not only did he defy supposed set-in-stone racial roles in order to achieve affluence that was customarily uncommon for blacks at the time, but he also rose to greatness with support from whites themselves. Merrick then directed his wealth back into his community, and by doing so, provided services to blacks that improved their quality of life and presented them with new and diverse job opportunities. His achievements served as an example that opened the door for a black business class to emerge in Durham.

John Merrick was recognized alongside C.C. Spaulding Sr. and Richard Fitzgerald as Main Honorees by the Sesquicentennial Honors Commission at the Durham 150 Closing Ceremony in Durham, NC on November 2, 2019. The posthumous recognition was bestowed upon the group for their contributions to Durham as innovative leaders who established one of the nation's strongest African American entrepreneurial enclaves.[14]

Media related to John Merrick (1859–1919) at Wikimedia Commons