Unity National Bank, headquartered in Houston, Texas, with $209 million in assets, is the eighth largest African American owned bank by assets. It is located just a stone’s throw away from Texas Southern University. Recently the bank named Pedro Bryant, a Morris Brown College alum, its new CEO and President. Unity National Bank has an immense opportunity to move up the rankings for African American banks with the right strategy. According to an Apartment List report in February 2024, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and Austin rank as the third, fourth, sixth, and seventh best cities in the US for African American professionals. Lendio also reports that Texas is home to over 400,000 African American owned businesses and almost 13,000 are employer firms. These ingredients mean that with Unity National Bank being the only African American owned bank in the state the runway for growth is theirs to capture. This also means a strengthening of ties between HBCUs and the African America private sector are that much stronger. The lack of cohesion between the two institutions (100 HBCUs and 16 African American owned banks) has largely been one of the key ingredients holding back the African American economy as intellectual and economic capital rarely circulates between HBCUs and the African American owned employer firms.
Whatever glory belongs to the race for a development unprecedented in history for the given length of time, a full share belongs to the womanhood of the race. – Mary McLeod Bethune
African American Owned Banks (AAOBs) continue to decline, down to 16 since from 21 since we last highlighted African American Owned Banks’ Most Powerful Women in 2013. The decline of almost 25 percent of African American Owned Banks over the past decade has meant less and less opportunity across the board and for African American women that appears to be the case as well. As our institutions decrease, so then do our ability to create opportunities for our communities. African American women in AAOBs have seen an increase only in the board of directors with all other positions seeing a decline.
Even with that reality, the numbers in comparison to their counterparts is still much greater. The largest 50 banks which are all non-AAOBs have only 1 woman (2 percent) at the helm according to American Banker. African American women comprise almost 20 percent of African American Owned Banks CEO positions.
2024 Statistics (2013 Statistics)
3 CEOs/President (4 CEOs/Presidents)
1 CFO (2 CFOs)
10 Vice-Presidents (13 Vice-Presidents)
8 Board of Directors (7 Board of Directors)
We have done our best to find out just who are some of the amazing African American women serving as executives and directors at African American Owned Banks around the country. However, some banks do not have their management or board of directors listed so we are sure we missed a few talented women, but for now here is who we found and some of their stories.
Mrs. Cooper is co-founder of the voter education non-profit Stand Up Mobile: A Blueprint for US. She retired after 15 years as President of The Christian Benevolent Funeral Home, Inc. a family- owned business for 96 years.
In February 2012, she became the Chief Executive Officer, the first permanently named female CEO in the Company’s history. Under her leadership as Chief Executive Officer, the bank has reached many milestones including achieving its highest level of performance during its 100 year existence. Further, most recently, the Bank was ranked, by S&P Global, #28 out of the Top 200 Performing Banks in the Country in its asset band.
Iris D. Goodly, Senior Vice President/ Director of Client Services and Operations
Jaimmé Collins, General Counsel, EVP and SVP of Strategy
In addition to being General Counsel, Ms. Collins manages Liberty’s strategic initiatives, joint ventures, regulatory matters, and leads Liberty Community Development Corporation (Liberty’s real estate development affiliate) and Liberty Foundation, Inc. (Liberty’s nonprofit affiliate).
Teri Williams, President and Chief Operating Officer
Responsible for implementation of the Bank’s strategic initiatives, as well as the day-to-day operations of the bank. These operational areas include all retail branches, marketing, compliance, lending, information technology, customer support, legal, and human resources. Under her leadership, OneUnited Bank has consolidated the local names and product offerings of four (4) banks to create a powerful national brand supported by innovative products and services. She brings 30 years of financial services expertise from premier institutions such as Bank of America and American Express, where she was one of the youngest Vice Presidents.
She has been in the banking industry for 30 years. She has held senior level positions in the areas of sales, operations and consumer lending. Her responsibilities include management of five retail branches as well as the online branch, the banks facilities, item processing operations and the call center. She also serves as the Security Officer for the Bank. She has successfully managed two system conversions and one item processing conversion during her tenure. Ms. Brewer has worked for Wells Fargo, Orange County Credit Union, Business Bank of California, and First City Federal Credit Union.
Marionette Y. Wilson, Secretary of the Board of Directors
Ms. Wilson joined the Board of Directors of United Bank of Philadelphia in 1992 as a founding director. She is now retired but was formerly the Co-Founder/Partner, John Frazier, Inc., Philadelphia, PA from 1981-2002.
*Evelyn F. Smalls, President and Chief Executive Officer (pictured bottom left)
Mrs. Smalls is President and Chief Executive Officer of United Bank of Philadelphia, a minority-owned and controlled, full service commercial bank. With over 30 years experience in banking and community development, Mrs. Smalls is responsible for the leadership and management of the Bank including setting the direction of the organization, communicating its vision and adapting the culture and operations to achieve success.
Prior to her appointment as President and Chief Executive Officer, Mrs. Smalls served as Senior Vice President for Regulatory Compliance and Community Reinvestment. Her leadership helped establish the Bank’s community reinvestment model that has achieved consecutive “Outstanding” ratings from the Federal Reserve and FDIC since the Bank’s inception.
Mrs. Smalls received her Bachelor’s degree in Business from North Carolina Central University.
Brenda M. Hudson-Nelson, Executive Vice President & CFO
Mrs. Hudson-Nelson has served as United Bank of Philadelphia’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for twenty-five years. Mrs. Hudson-Nelson has thirty-four years experience within the financial services industry. Mrs. Hudson-Nelson’s responsibilities include directing financial planning, implementing, and overseeing the Bank’s systems of internal controls, managing the Bank’s investment portfolio, and monitoring and managing the Bank’s sensitivity to interest rate risk. Ms. Hudson-Nelson ensures that the Bank’s Annual Report, SEC Reports and other Regulatory Reports are filed accurately and timely.
She served as Treasurer on the Boards of Director for the South Street Dance Company, CHOICE, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Mercer County, and for Prevention Point Philadelphia.
Dimitria Davenport, Vice President, Community Banking & Compliance
With over 20 years in the financial services industry, she has held key roles within Training, Consumer Banking, Retail Administration and Human Resources. Dimitria has spent the last eighteen years of her career working diligently to carry out United Bank’s mission of financially empowering people and businesses in the greater Philadelphia region.
Dimitria serves on several Boards: The Executive Committee of The African American Chamber of Commerce, The City Schools and The New Hope Community Development Corporation.
*Dr. LaDonna Boyd, Board of Directors (pictured top left)
As the fifth-generation president/CEO of the R.H. Boyd Family of Companies in Nashville, Tennessee, she’s a powerhouse of innovation and creativity, transforming the business landscape while championing social causes close to her heart.
She earned her bachelor’s in economics and with a minor in French from Spelman College, followed by an MBA with a finance concentration from Tennessee State University. She completed her with a Doctorate in Education with a focus on organizational leadership from Pepperdine University. She further honed her skills by earning two certificates in from Harvard University’s Extension School in Digital Marketing Strategy and Artificial Intelligence in Business: Creating Value With Machine Learning.
*Joan Fleming, SVP of Residential Lending and Community Development (pictured top right)
She is an industry leader- finding ways to produce results through her expertise, commitment and relationships. Joan has a passion for delivering value and benefit to her clients with an enthusiastic and friendly attitude. It is her commitment to serve the underserved by being an advocate for affordable housing and financial literacy. Her “thinking outside the box” mentality allows her to develop programs to ensure everyone can build wealth through homeownership.
All banks are listed by state. In order to be listed in our directory the bank must have at least 51 percent African American ownership. You can click on the bank name to go directly to their website.
OTHER KEY FINDINGS:
11 of the 17 African American Owned Banks saw increases in assets from 2022.
African American Owned Banks (AAOBs) are in 16 states and territories. Key states absent are Maryland, Missouri, New York, and Virginia.
Adelphi Bank (OH) is the first African American Owned Bank (AAOB) started in 23 years.
Alabama and Georgia each have two AAOBs.
African American Owned Banks have approximately $5.8 billion of America’s $23.2 trillion bank assets (see above) or 0.02 percent. The apex of African American owned bank assets was in 1926 when AAOBs held 0.2 percent of America’s bank assets or 10 times the percentage they hold today.
African American Owned Banks control 1.7 percent of FDIC designated Minority-Owned Bank Assets.
2023 Median AAOBs Assets: $168,701,000 ($150,072,000)
2023 Average AAOBs Assets: $326,097,000 ($325,391,000)
TOTAL AFRICAN AMERICAN OWNED BANK ASSETS 2023: $5,867,738,000 ($5,531,655,000)
Pew Research Center highlights a look at the 161,031 U.S. firms with majority African American ownership as of 2021. Below are a few of the highlighted graphs that Pew Research showed in their report with HBCU Money commentary.
According to the SBA there were approximately 3.2 million African American-owned businesses as of 2018, but that is just the top layer. When you dig into the numbers by the Census of how many of those 3.2 million African American-owned businesses actually have paid employees and receipts exceeding $1,000 that number plummets to the previously mentioned 161,031 or only 5 percent of total African American-owned businesses.
African American businesses are highly concentrated in health care and social assistance. Businesses that often have low scale potential and high risk often times due their clients being predominantly African American and higher probability of being uninsured. Where are the African American-owned energy companies? Manufacturing companies? Multinational firms? These are the questions that need to be asked, considered, and discussed by HBCU business schools and African American organizations like the HBCU Chamber of Commerce.
It is no surprise that the highest concentration of African American-owned businesses are in locations with higher African American density populations and high concentrations of HBCUs. HBCUs and HBCU alumni unfortunately are not doing enough to create investment infrastructure to ensure the businesses are able to go into less explored and more profitable areas as the aforementioned graph highlighted.
For the full Pew Research Center report click here.
How long have you been in real estate investment? 6 years
What has been the most exciting and/or fearful moment during your HBCUpreneur career? The moment I decided to leave my full time job as a senior physical therapist at a top tier hospital and become a full time entrepreneur and manifest my destiny!
What made you want to start real estate investing? I wanted to create wealth and have the freedom with my time to spend it how I wanted.
How do you handle complex problems? I simplify them to the basics on what is necessary to complete first then move to the least and unimpactful item last.
Who was the most influential person/people for you during your time in college? My professors, they were always encouraging and talked real life aspects to prepare me for the real world outside of school.
What is something you wish you had known prior to your first real estate investment? That I should have started investing in real estate ever since I was working and living at home with my mother after I graduated. I didn’t have to have all the pieces in place before I started.
Would you advise someone to buy a primary home or investment property first? I would advise them to do both. A primary home can be utilized to be your investment property, can house hack with a duplex or a single family home large enough to rent out rooms if you desired. Or purchase a primary home that allows you to save for down payment to another investment property or home to move into and rent your current one out.
What is one current trend in real estate investing, and how can investors take advantage of it? The updated fannie mae conventional loan to buy a multi-family (2-4 door unit), allows 5% down payment. Before it required 20-25% down payment, that is why all opted for FHA 3.5% down payment, now you can scale to more properties as a primary residence without having to refinance out of FHA loan every year or so.
Artificial Intelligence is everywhere and its presence in real estate is certainly likely to grow like everywhere else. How do you see it impacting real estate investing in particular? I would want it to underwrite a deal for me quick and fast or I upload a video of the house and it tells me all the repairs needed and estimated costs, that would be cool.
Do you see any potential headwinds that maybe facing real estate investors in the near future? No, true investors learn to adapt in any environment and any obstacle. As long as your mind is right, you will persevere.
Is there anything you read or follow in order to stay an informed real estate investor? I listen to podcasts all on the real estate subject, I take webinars and active at different networking events.
How do you believe HBCUs can help spur more aptitude for understanding real estate investment while their students are in school either as undergraduate or graduate students? I would say to offer more financial literacy courses, help students to understand you can make money but if you are not smart with those decisions Uncle Sam and bad habits will leave you with nothing. Also, to understand all the different taxes that come out of paycheck, it helps to offset extra money with an llc.
How do you deal with rejection? I smile and say thank you for your time.
When you have down time how do you like to spend it? I spend it being harassed by my kids and/or watching movies.
What was your most memorable HBCU memory? I met my husband at a local nightclub in Tallahassee. He was also at FAMU grad school, different major than me.
Lastly, is there any advice you have for budding HBCUpreneurs in real estate? Discipline leads to habits, habits lead to consistency, consistency leads to growth. Changing your mindset will open more doors for you!
HBCU Money 