Grand United Order of True Reformers

Grand United Order of True Reformers was an American fraternal organization for African-Americans led by people of European-descent, founded in 1873 in Alabama and Kentucky. By c. 1875, the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, or the True Reformers, was re-organized for and led by African-Americans and founded in Richmond, Virginia by William Washington Browne. This organization existed as a business and a mutual-aid society during the era of Jim Crow segregation laws, and it supported the growing African-American middle class through economic opportunities and education, before its closure in 1934.[1]

Grand United Order of True Reformers
SuccessorGrand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers
Formation1873
Dissolved1934
TypeAfrican-American fraternal organization
HeadquartersAlabama and Kentucky, U.S.
Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Location
AffiliationsIndependent Order of Good Templars
The banking room (1895) in the Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain
The banking room (1895) in the Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain
True Reformer Building, 1200 U Street Northwest, Washington, District of Columbia, DC
True Reformer Building, 1200 U Street Northwest in Washington, District of Columbia, D.C.
A working branch of The True Reformers Savings Bank within the Negro Building at the 1907 Jamestown Exposition
A working branch of The True Reformers Savings Bank within the Negro Building at the 1907 Jamestown Exposition

History

Grand United Order of True Reformers (1873–1880s)

The Grand United Order of True Reformers began in the 1873 in Alabama and Kentucky.[1][2] It existed as an African American organization led by the all-White organization of the Independent Order of Good Templars.[2] The organization was active in the temperance movement, and provided their members with sick and death benefits.[1]

William "Ben" Washington Browne was born in 1849 as a Black man into bondage on the Georgia plantation owned by Benjamin Pryor in Habersham County.[3][4] He eventually escaped his enslavers during the American Civil War and joined the Union Army, followed by a discharge of service in 1862.[3] Browne attended school in Wisconsin, followed by a period of teaching and church ministry in the south.[4] He was an outspoken proponent of the temperance movement, and eventually he joined the Grand United Order of True Reformers.[4] Around 1875, Browne was invited by the True Reformers to spearhead a new branch of the movement in Richmond, Virginia.[3][4]

Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers (1875–1934)

The Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers was founded by William Washington Browne in c. 1875 in Richmond, Virginia;[4] it started as a African-American fraternal organization.[3] Browne created the organization with the purpose of reviving the Grand United Order of True Reformers, which had become less active.[1]

When interest in the organization began to decrease Browne began shifting the organization from a temperance society to an insurance organization, a movement that required Browne to move to the city of Richmond in 1880.[5] The Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers expanded in order to support a growing African American middle class and offered business services included a bank, a real estate company, it owned several properties, it ran a newspaper entitled the Reformer, it owned a retirement home, and had a children’s division.[1][5][6] At one point in time was the largest black fraternal society and black-owned business in the United States.[5][6] It reached the 70,000 members by 1900, and by that time had also contributed US $2 million in benefits and relief.[7]

The True Reformers Savings Bank

In 1889, The True Reformers Savings Bank opened, it was the first Black bank in the United States to receive a bank charter.[3] Giles Beecher Jackson of Richmond, Virginia had helped found the bank affiliated with the True Reformers organization.[8] At the banks peak in 1907, it took in deposits of more than US $1 million.[3] However by 1910, the bank closed after an embezzlement scandal and a number of large loan defaults occurred.[1][9] The organization existed until 1934, however it was mostly collapsed after the closure of the bank.[1] After the bank defaulted, the organization was not able to payout the outstanding insurance claims which caused the state of Virginia to revoked their insurance license.[10]

Notable people
Eliza Allen of Bank True Reformers Savings Bank
Eliza Allen of Bank True Reformers Savings Bank
  • Eliza Allen, first and only female listed on the charter of the True Reformers Savings Bank[11]
  • Mary E. Cary Burrell, educator and businessperson[12]
  • William Patrick Burrell, secretary to Browne for the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers[13]
  • William Nauns Ricks, poet[14]

See also

References
  1. Hollie, Donna Tyler. "Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  2. "The Grand Fountain United Order of True Reformers Begins". African American Registry (AAREG). Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  3. Williams, Michael Paul (February 16, 1999). "William Washington Browne". Richmond Times Dispatch.
  4. Kranz, Rachel (2004). African-American Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs. Facts on File. pp. 34–35. ISBN 978-0816051014. William Washington Browne.
  5. Watkinson, James D. "William Washington Browne (1849–1897)". Encyclopedia Virginia.
  6. Mjagkij, Nina (2001). Organizing Black America. Routledge. p. 220. ISBN 978-0815323099.
  7. Schmidt, Alvin J. Fraternal Organizations. Westport, CT; Greenwood Press 1980 p.333
  8. Lee, Lauranett L. "Giles B. Jackson (1853–1924)". Encyclopedia Virginia.
  9. Fahey, David M. (2013). "Why some black lodges prospered and others failed: the Good Templars and the True Reformers". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 36 (2): 337–352. doi:10.1080/01419870.2012.676196. S2CID 143876320.
  10. "Efforts to Save Colored Bank". The Roanoke Times. 1910-10-30. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  11. Garrett-Scott, Shennette (May 2019). Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal. Columbia University Press. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-231-54521-1.
  12. Hughey, Matthew W. (2015-04-10). Race and Ethnicity in Secret and Exclusive Social Orders: Blood and Shadow. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-43247-0.
  13. "William Patrick Burrell (25 November 1865-18 March 1952)". Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Retrieved 2023-03-16.
  14. Fahey, David M. (2003). "William Washington Browne: Fraternal Society Leader". In Mjagkij, Nina (ed.). Portraits of African American Life Since 1865. Wilmington, Delaware: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-8420-2967-4.

Further reading
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