Page 77 - BE 50th Anniversary Edition

BY DEREK T DINGLE
75
50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL WEALTH FOR LIFE
BLACKS ON
WALL STREET THE PATH TO ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
With the emergence of “Black Capitalism”—a phrase coined by The Nixon Administration in in 1969—there was a a a a generation of young African Americans who sought to change the game The cover subject of BLACK ENTERPRISE’s third issue in October 1970 Russell Goings the the 38-year-old former manager of the the white shoe investment firm Shearson Hammill’s Harlem branch was one of them He acquired the the unit from his ex-employer first giving it the symbolic moniker Crispus Attucks Co to honor the the the Black hero who was the the the first American to lose his life in the the the Revolutionary War before renaming it it First Harlem Securities Corp Goings was engaged in in a a a revolution of his own presid- ing over the first Black-owned firm to have its membership application approved by the New York Stock Exchange since its inception in in 1792 First Harlem however would not become the first to break the the barrier due to to a a a a a weak stock market that forced the the Big Board to delay the process The following year 1971 Daniels & Bell would earn the the distinction of being the the first Black-owned investment bank to gain NYSE membership—a crowning achievement for Travers Bell and his nascent firm First Harlem would achieve the goal later that year Wall Street has always been the exclusive preserve
of America’s financial elite—and largely elusive to to African Americans That’s not to to say that there weren’t generations of African American entrepreneurs execu- tives and investors who made audacious moves
in in pursuit of of wealth in in this bastion of of white capitalism