Black History Month celebrations often focus on African American achievements in politics, culture and sports – business achievements, in general, and financial services accomplishments, in particularly, rarely get considered in this February spotlight. One prominent figure within the financial services world who should be highlighted during Black History Month – or, for that matter, in any month – is Maggie Lena Walker, who broke both racial and gender barriers in 1903 when she became the nation’s first female bank president.
A Slow Climb To Prestige: She was born Maggie Lena Draper in Richmond, Virginia, in 1864, when the city was still the capital of the Confederacy. Her mother, Elizabeth Draper, was a formerly enslaved woman working as a cook and domestic servant in the home of Elizabeth Van Lew, a philanthropist who worked as a Union spy during the Civil War. Her father was Eccles Cuthbert, and Irish-born Confederate officer who later became a prominent journalist. The exact nature of her relationship with her father is unclear – during her life, she cited William Mitchell, a Black butler whom her mother married in 1868, as her father, although she would also give the name Eccles to one of her sons, thus suggesting some relationship existed.
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