North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company

The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company (originally the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association) is an American life insurance company located in downtown Durham, North Carolina. Founded in 1898 by local black social leaders, its business increased from less than a thousand dollars in income in 1899 to a quarter of a million dollars in 1910[1] . It is one of the largest companies founded by African Americans, and it is the largest and oldest African American life insurance company in the United States today[2] . In fact, the company came to be known as the world’s largest African American business in only its first few years and is claimed by its home city of Durham as an important landmark. In the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s Durham was known as “The Black Wall Street of America.[3] ” for the progress that African Americans were making within the town. The company’s founders, thought to be inspired by North Carolina business tycoon Washington Duke, included John Merrick and Dr. Aaron Moore, two particularly influential men in Durham’s history. North Carolina Mutual and its prosperity brought many good things to Durham’s black community, and its founders and organizers were important contributors to social and economic progress in the city and particularly in its African American community.

Origins

North Carolina Mutual was the brainchild of black entrepreneur John C. Merrick in the late 1800s. Merrick was born into slavery as the son of a white man and a former slave in 1859. He grew up in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, two cities near Durham, and he learned various skills such as bricklaying and barbering during his youth. He moved to Durham in 1880 and opened his own barber shop in 1882. His hair-cutting business grew to include several stores, three for whites and two for blacks, and Merrick himself cut hair for many people. He even became the personal barber to Washington Duke, successful tobacco industrialist, founder of American Tobacco Company, and namesake of Duke University.[4] Duke is suspected to have been an influence in Merrick’s successful business idea and the formation of North Carolina Mutual. Some argue that Duke made loans for the funding of N C Mutual as well. While it is possible that Washington Duke passed on helpful advice, some business strategies, and possibly loans to Merrick, he did very little else. The biggest influence came after John Merrick, along with four other partners, bought the Royal Knights of King David. The society was “a semi-religious fraternal and beneficial society for health and life insurance.” In buying it, Merrick learned about insurance and how to relate the insurance business to African Americans.[5]

Merrick knew that blacks had short life expectancies (around 32–34 years in 1900) and that they generally had poor health, largely due to their low income. These things made the idea of starting an insurance business for African Americans a very risky one, because many people would be expected to die before they could contribute to the success of the business. However they were also the reasons African Americans needed life insurance to begin with. Merrick decided that the opportunity to help blacks outweighed the risk, and he joined with investors Aaron Moore, Pearson, Watson, Shepard, Johnson, and Dawkins to found the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Society in 1898.[6] In the first year, there was a terrible lack of business, and the company lost money overall. Because of this, many investors left North Carolina Mutual, and by the time the company was reorganized in 1900, only Merrick, Moore, and Moore’s young cousin Charles Clinton Spaulding remained. Spaulding was appointed General Manager with Merrick serving as President and Moore as his only other principal. Under this leadership, the growth of the company began.

Leadership

John Merrick John Merrick was the first president of N. C. Mutual, and he served as such from the company’s founding until his death in 1919. He had always gotten the community very involved with his businesses, seeking their patronage and making plans to serve them from the barber shop days and onward. N. C. Mutual was no exception, and African Americans in Durham began to flock to the company for life insurance. The success of the company was rooted in Merrick’s business talent. His skill and knack for the job became apparent as N. C. Mutual emerged as a “master stroke in the field of insurance.” Merrick and the founders of the company were seen by local white newspapers in the 1900s to have been “men of vision.” They were said to have had “a storehouse of unlimited business experience and an unshaken confidence in the prowess of the race.”[7] These traits propelled N. C. Mutual forward into vast success, and they also drove Merrick to start several other businesses within Durham and the surrounding area. Financial institutions in the area such as the Mechanics and Farmers Bank, founded by Merrick, saw comparable success and were important to the growth and development of Durham and African American community. Still, N. C. Mutual was Merrick’s primary concern, and he worked to keep it alive and prosperous.

Aaron Moore After Merrick’s death, Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore became president of the company. Moore was a philanthropist and a doctor who was born in 1863 as the son of two free parents. He taught high school in his adult life and earned his medical degree from the Leonard Medical School at Shaw University. He became the first African American in Durham ever to practice medicine, and he implemented his experience in the medical profession in the review of N. C. Mutual’s insurance policies. Moore’s judgment was crucial because he made sure that the company policies were upheld from a medical standpoint. In this way, Moore contributed greatly to the success of the company. He was just as driven to help the African Americans of Durham as Merrick was, and he worked just as dutifully as president to assure that the business was a success after Merrick’s death. Before taking charge, Moore had joined with others to start different businesses in the area such as the Lincoln Hospital, Lincoln Library, and a drug company. Because of this and his other endeavors, Dr. Moore “wielded wide influence in the city” and was instrumental in making black progress in the area. Moore was a figurehead for many businesses and groups, but after becoming president of N. C. Mutual, he devoted his full time to the company until he died in 1923.[8]

C.C. Spaulding When Moore died, Charles Clinton Spaulding took over as president, and the company flourished under his leadership. Spaulding, who was born in Columbus County, 1874, had attended and graduated high school in 1898, and had managed a grocery store for a year before joining Merrick and Moore at N. C. Mutual. Spaulding was ambitious and caring, and he performed many duties, serving as a company agent, clerk, janitor, and then general manager after the reorganization of the business. He was the main “builder” of the business after its reorganization and then as president until his own death in 1952. During his tenure, N. C. Mutual gained prestige and became nationally known. Spaulding also gained many honors in that time. He served on the board of trustees at Howard University beginning in 1936.[9] He was known well as a black leader in Durham County. Spaulding served in the National Negro Insurance Association and the National Negro Bankers Association in the early 1900s and was one of few African American members of the New York Chamber of Commerce beginning in 1942. He also served on two additional boards of trustees at Shaw University and North Carolina College. He was awarded the Harmon Foundation Gold medal for distinguished achievement in business, and he received honorary Law doctorates from Shaw University, Tuskegee University, and Atlanta University.[10] These honors distinguished him as a leader and a thinker and verified his success as well as that of N. C. Mutual.

North Carolina Mutual and Durham

N. C. Mutual Life has had long-lasting impacts on the Durham society and the way people view Durham. Durham, North Carolina was known in the 1800s to have been a highly segregated city, much like many others in the South at that time. However, by 1900, it had begun to emerge as a rather progressive area by the region’s standards. Even though there was a clear, unspoken line between “White Durham” and “Black Durham” that kept the city segregated, African American progress in the city was evident, and N. C. Mutual was an important part of Durham’s progress. The business that the company brought to its owners and workers was impressive and impactful. Because the business was “owned and operated by and for Negroes,” it offered the black people of Durham many new job opportunities as it grew. Primarily, it offered much-needed life insurance to the black community of Durham, and it gave them a business on which they could rely and place their trust. The people of Durham took just as much pride in the “multi-million-dollar enterprise” that was N. C. Mutual as they did in the progressive nature of their city.[11] As the company grew, it came to be a symbol of African American success and the success of Durham as a whole.

Visits to Durham from Black Leaders

Durham became a national magnet for prominent black leaders, who celebrated the city as a model of racial pride. The city even attracted the attention of famous visitors who gave positive reviews of the city that were based on the N. C. Mutual business. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, two of the most important black leaders in the movement for African American progress in the 1900s visited Durham County on separate occasions and made comments about the state of the city and its black community.

Booker T. Washington Washington was an advocate for avoiding confrontation with racist whites and instead emphasized long-term educational and economic advancement in the black community. He claimed after his visit that Durham “was the city of cities to look for prosperity of the Negroes and the greatest amount of friendly feeling between the two races of the South.”[12] Black entrepreneurs such as Merrick and Moore had not simply enjoyed the fruits of their efforts and taken in the wealth for themselves, but instead had spread it among all of Durham’s people. Even the impoverished in Durham had been well taken-care-of, and their living conditions surpassed those of the poor black communities in the larger southern cities at the time. This was evidenced in the comments written by Washington, who expected to find the poorer blacks of Durham to be in shoddy state. He notes in his writing that he “drove through their section of the city, observing closely their houses inside and out,” and he goes on to explain that the neighborhood was in such good state that he “almost doubted [his] eyes.” This poorer class of blacks, which Washington describes as the class upon which “the real estimate of [African Americans] is generally formed,” was thriving in Durham and gave off a “general healthy appearance.”[13] The reason for this was the care of prominent black leaders in the city and the relations between white and black people in the area, both of which were pillars in the formation and mission of North Carolina Mutual.

W.E.B. DuBois W.E.B. DuBois had a different approach to the fight for black equality, choosing to support a method of agitation to demand full civil rights for blacks—yet he also celebrated Durham. Reflecting on his visit to Durham, he notes that the “social and economic development [of African American people in the city] is perhaps more striking than that of any similar group in the nation.” In his article, he goes on to mention the actions of C. C. Spaulding, then general manager of N. C. Mutual, who took children from a school to town “to show them what colored People were doing in Durham.” He saw Spaulding’s action as an abnormal display of care within the African American community. DuBois praised the success of North Carolina Mutual and commends the company for its care in avoiding common pitfalls. He specifically attributed the success of Durham as a whole to the drive of Merrick, Moore, and Spaulding. DuBois believed that their ingenuity in the formation of N. C. Mutual was the beginning and cornerstone of “the economic building of black Durham” for which the city came to be known.[14]

The Company as a Symbol

The N. C. Mutual Life Insurance business came to represent a major divergence from the more militant strategy of W. E. B. DuBois. It mirrored the tendency of the blacks in Durham to follow the more compromising and gradualist plan of Booker T. Washington. N. C. Mutual was founded to bring about “racial self-help and uplift,” which are mentioned on the company’s website to be “traditions of the Company dating back to its founding.[15] ” Its goal was to help them overcome the differences of a segregated society through economic pursuits. The company generated massive revenue for black Durham without the involvement of whites. That revenue was then used to better the situation of blacks throughout the community.[16] This process all but embodied Washington’s ideals to win equality financially and economically before anything else.

The company came to symbolize the ideals of African American self-help that it stood for from the beginning.[17] One newspaper covering the company’s 50th anniversary remarks that it “has fully justified the hopes, anticipations and desires of the founders.” It goes on to say that N. C. Mutual has become a great “enterprise that is the property of the policyholders themselves.”[18] The company was not built to spite white people in Durham or for fear of them. Instead, it was built alongside white businesses for the purpose of helping blacks in the community. DuBois commented himself on the value of “the active friendship of the Duke family, General Julian S. Carr, and [other influential white people].” He went on to mention “the disposition of white citizens of Durham to say: ‘Hands off – give them a chance – don’t interfere.’” This disposition is what he believed to be one of the great contributors to Durham success.[19] In this regard, N. C. Mutual is a symbol that represents the cooperation and self-support among African Americans in that time. That cooperation brought about black progress in Durham, and the company still stands as a symbol of that now.

The Company Today

Today, North Carolina Mutual Life Company still stands and operates in Durham. It currently services clients all across the nation through partnerships and offices in many states. The company has total assets of $162 million, with net life insurance of $14.3 billion. North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance now provides many different life insurance products. These include whole and term life, hospital indemnity plans, and pre-need insurance. The company has also introduced medical and dental benefits packages for employer groups. It is licensed to do business in 24 states as well as Washington D. C. and has an alliance with Minnesota Life. It has launched a full service Insurance Agency (the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Agency) offering annuities, disability income, and universal life. The company has had nine presidents in its history, and is currently under the leadership of James H. Speed Jr.

References

[1]W. E. B. DuBois, “The Upbuilding of Black Durham,” The World’s Work, January, 1912, 335. (primary 1)
[2]“North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company: About Us,” Accessed November 1, 2013, http://www.ncmutuallife.com/newsite/pages/about.html. (secondary 1)
[3]Walter B. Weare, Black Business in the New South: A Social History of the NC Mutual Life Insurance Company, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993). (secondary 2)
[4]Robert Franklin Durden, The Dukes of Durham: 1865-1929, (Duke University Press, 1975). (secondary 3)
[5]Jean Bradley Anderson, Durham County: A History of Durham County, North Carolina, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 188. (secondary 4)
[6]Anderson, Durham County, 188. (s4)
[7]“The North Carolina Mutual,” Atlanta Daily World, May 10, 1936, 4, http://gateway.proquest.com.proxy.lib.duke.edu/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:bsc:&rft_dat=xri:bsc:rec:newspaper:HNP_77905_19360510_0060. (primary 2)
[8]“North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company: About Us.” (s1)
[9]“North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company: About Us.” (s1)
[10]J. A. Rogers, World’s Great Men of Color, Volume 2, (Simon and Schuster, 2010), 521. (secondary 5)
[11]“Success Story,” Accessed Nov 1, 2013, http://www.ncmutuallife.com/newsite/videos/past_present_future.html. (primary 3)
[12]Booker T. Washington, “Durham, North Carolina, a City of Negro Enterprises,” The Independent, Mar 30, 1911, 71. (Primary 4)
[13]Washington, “Durham, North Carolina” The Independent, Mar 30, 1911, 70. (p4)
[14]DuBois, “The Upbuilding of Black Durham,” The World’s Work, 336. (p1)
[15]“North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company: About Us.” (s1)
[16]Washington, “Durham, North Carolina” The Independent, Mar 30, 1911, 70. (p4)
[17]“North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company: About Us.” (s1)
[18]“N. C. Mutual Marks 50th Anniversary,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 2, 1949, 16. (primary 5)
[19]DuBois, “The Upbuilding of Black Durham,” The World’s Work, 336. (p1)