Before it was the City of Medicine, Durham was known as "The Black Wall Street of America" and the "Capital of the Black Middle Class." At the heart of this hub of black economic and industrial progress sat insurance company North Carolina Mutual.
N.C. Mutual was the first and largest life insurance company founded by and dedicated to serving blacks. This week, the company celebrates its centennial with a series of receptions and events, and looks toward its future as it reviews its 100 years in business.
The festivities kicked off last weekend with "North Carolina Mutual Sunday" and will end with a black-tie gala this Saturday. Today, the company will host a "Night at the Theater" with a showing of a drama about urban renewal set in Durham's Hayti community.
Although today N.C. Mutual boasts billions in assets, its original motive was strictly humanitarian. Just three decades after the end of the Civil War, Dr. Aaron Moore, Durham's first black physician, and John Merrick, owner of a string of barber shops, collaborated to provide a means "to aid Negro families in distress."
Their mission was to provide a vital service to the black community. In those days of segregation, most companies refused to insure blacks, and many of the lower class resorted to "passing the hat" to pay for funeral costs. Tradition holds that Washington Duke was getting a haircut in Merrick's barbershop when one such collection occurred, and he suggested to Merrick the possibility of establishing a life insurance company.
The fledgling company began inauspiciously. It teetered on the brink of failure after its first customer died only six weeks after signing with N.C. Mutual. However, through the hard work of manager Charles Spaulding, the company survived the deaths of both founders, the global flu epidemic of 1918 and the Great Depression. The company prospered amid the social change shaking the South in the first half of the 20th century.
In 1966, Vice President Hubert Humphrey dedicated N.C. Mutual's new Durham headquarters. Years earlier, N.C. Mutual had secretly purchased Benjamin Duke's baronial estate for the building. The company's skyscraper now towered over the American Tobacco empire and the fruit orchards where black workers had once labored. The pillar of glass and concrete stood as a monument to black progress in the New South.
N.C. Mutual now operates in 11 primarily southeastern states and the District of Columbia. Its stability continues to serve as an example for black enterprise. "We've been a showcase, a way to show African-American that if they want to go into business, we've been a successful one for 100 years," said President and Chief Executive Officer Bert Collins.
N.C. Mutual has traditionally focused on selling small life insurance policies to its main customer base, blacks and other minorities. But this approach is changing. "At one time, larger companies would not sell life insurance to African Americans, and that is where we came in," said Collins. "Now we're more interested in the majority market, the total market."
The key to this effort is selling group policies to major cities and corporations. Workers increasingly purchase insurance through their employers, and controller Willie Closs said he anticipated $1 million of growth in this area within the next few years.
In January, North Carolina regulators approved these plans, and on Tuesday N.C. Mutual completed its first major deal in this area with Chicago's Department of Parks and Recreation. Currently, the company is in the process of bidding for group insurance for Charlotte's school system and Cooke County, the county in which Chicago lies, said Closs.
N.C. Mutual's latest major deal in worksite marketing is with Duke University and Medical Center. Last spring, the University agreed to offer N.C. Mutual's universal life policy to its employees. The policy is invested so that when the customer dies, the beneficiary gets the investment income along with the payout. It is the first time the University has offered an N.C. Mutual policy, said John Burness, senior vice president for public Affairs.
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