In 2023, one hundred and twenty years after Maggie Walker became the first African American woman to charter a bank and serve as a bank president, sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, the country’s oldest social organization dedicated to and operated by Black women, announced the formation of a Federal Credit Union. The new institution aims to build generational wealth for Black women, promote social justice and uplift communities. The number of Black owned and operated financial institutions has fallen dramatically over the past thirty years, declining from 55 banks in 1994 to 18 (out of a total of 4,236) today. There are 33 Black owned and managed credit unions currently out of a total of 4,813. At 6 tenths of one percent of credit unions and 4 tenths of one percent of all banks, Black banks and credit unions are simply not a factor in the industry, and won’t be until their numbers increase significantly. We have long suggested that a more deliberate effort is required to inc...
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