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“But let the future lay its own ghosts; today there is a singular group in Durham where a black man may get up in the morning from a mattress made by black men, in a house which a black man built out of lumber which black men cut and planed; he may put on a suit which he bought at a colored haberdashery and socks knit at a colored mill; he may cook victuals from a colored grocery on a stove which black men fashioned; he may earn his living working for colored men, be sick in a colored hospital, and buried from a colored church; and the Negro insurance society will pay his widow enough to keep his children in a colored school. This is surely progress.”

W. E. B. Dubois, an American sociologist, historian, author, editor and activist visited Durham, North Carolina, in 1912. After that visit, Dubois wrote, of Durham's Black-owned North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association,

 

 

 

 

 

​The first President of North Carolina Mutual was barbershop owner John Merick.

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