Part 3:  Life Before Banking

GS:

Ed, tell me about life before banking.

EW:

I was born on the third floor of 4720 S. Prairie, on Chicago’s South Side.  Lang’s Bar-B-Q was located in the basement, and as a result, I’m still a barbeque fanatic!   I attended Tilden Tech, and after two years there, I transferred to Englewood High School.  After graduation from Englewood, I decided to attend Clark College in Atlanta.

GS:

Did college lead you to a career?

EW:

I had a scholarship to Clark and although I didn’t finish there, it was a great place.  I later earned my undergraduate degree at Roosevelt University in Chicago.  An alum from Clark, who had helped me get the scholarship, was the owner of a newspaper business where I had worked during grammar school and high school.

I came back to Chicago and this alum helped me buy a newspaper franchise on the West Side.  I was able to get this business because they were unable to find anyone else to take it.  It was the West Side at its low point.  The Chicago Tribune was desperate to get someone to handle the franchise and they guaranteed my note because I was under 21 and not old enough to buy the franchise. I had to borrow $6,000 to buy the franchise, which normally would have been worth $75-80,000.

I had 25 young men working for me and it was good working with them.  I learned a lot.  Many of these young men had to share the money earned to support their families, but it was hard on me because my employees were always getting robbed.  In those days, you collected money weekly, because when customers got over three weeks behind, you had to cut them off.  My brother and I would get up at 3 a.m., work all morning, and then go back in the afternoon to ride shotgun for the carriers collecting money.

I got out of the newspaper business because I was worrying about the safety of my employees.  What really got to me was what happened to a young man who was a double amputee.  He had one of the largest routes and it was hard on him.  Rain or shine, he was always there, he was never late.  He was also the best collector.  He made the most money and I tried to help him as much as I could.  Some guy tried to rob him.  He got hurt, and he had to be hospitalized.

At that time, I was in my twenties and I was getting gray hair.  It was a hard life, because the paper comes out 365 days a year and you had to be there and work every day of the year.  My brother was there to help me, but still, you didn’t get a vacation.  You didn’t sleep late.  Eventually, I got out of the business.  The Tribune divided up the business among some of the families that live in the community.  We had built the circulation up to triple what it was when we bought the business.  After the sale, I took a month or so to get myself together, and then I began to look for a job.

Part 4:  Life at Harris Bank

GS:

How did you end up at Harris?

EW:

Someone told me that Supreme Life Insurance was hiring people and I went down there to meet with the chairman, Earl B. Dickerson who was quite a legend, having been Chicago’s first black democratic alderman, an accomplished attorney, and prominent businessman.  I took the test at Supreme Life, and Mr. Dickerson told me that I had scored the highest of anyone that had taken the test.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have any openings at that time; but one of the thrifts that Supreme Life worked with had told Mr. Dickerson that they would like to hire a Negro.  He told me to go downtown, talk to the person at the thrift, and tell him that he sent me.  I took the test there and they called me back and said that I had done very well.  While everything looked fine, the thrift told me that they “wanted to hire someone more typical.”

GS:

Which was code for what?

EW:

They wanted someone dark skinned.  They wanted to be able to put someone down on the first floor that everyone could see, know that they were Negro, and allow the thrift to take credit for making the hire.  So they turned me down.

I started filling out applications downtown at other financial institutions, and ultimately I ended up at Harris Bank as a teller.  I was the first Black male hired at Harris.  There were two Black females here when I joined the bank, one was a cleaning lady and the other was a switchboard operator.  It was a little raw at that time.  There wasn’t blatant racism at the bank, but every once in a while you would encounter it.

GS:

How did you gain additional responsibilities?

EW:

Shortly after starting in this position, we opened up a new section of the bank that had four tellers, but no teller supervisor.  We used to have to decide among ourselves who was going to provide coverage and I became the “self – appointed” supervisor of this group.  Ultimately, I became the teller supervisor.  From there I went to personal banking rep and after a short time, I became supervisor of the personal banking section.

I was then asked to go to a new area that the bank was formed to work with Black entrepreneurs.  We worked with companies like Metropolitan Sausage, Proctor & Gardner Advertising, and people like Al Boutte.  That portfolio grew and I was asked to work with another person that had been hired to be manager of this unit.  At the time, I didn’t have commercial banking training, but it went well.  When he moved on, I took over that section – heading up a commercial banking unit, and that is probably where things really began to take off.  That’s not to say that things weren’t going well, because for the first 18 years at the bank, I was doing something different every 18 to 24 months.

GS:

I would imagine that back then, 1970 or 1971, there were very few Blacks working in the commercial banking areas of large financial institutions.

EW:

There were very, very, very few.  There were people in similar capacities, and they all started after I did - Gene Armstrong at First National Bank of Chicago, Ron Greer and Roland Burris at Continental, Gerald Hines at American National, and that was it. Toussaint Hale came on later.  As far as I know, I was the first in downtown Chicago. 

GS:

How long did you stay in commercial banking?

EW:

I did that for about five years.  Then I went back as the head of retail banking.  I was also head of the mortgage area, and what was then private banking.  I was in retail banking for 23-24 years in total.  I made Senior Vice President and Group Head in 1980.

GS:

What other Blacks had made Senior Vice President at major banks by that time?

EW:

Nobody in Chicago.  Even across the country, as far as I knew, there was no one.  I knew most of the senior Black bankers in the country because of my involvement with the National Banker’s Association.

I made Executive Vice President in 1991.  I was over retail banking at the time.  Shortly after that, the bank was traumatized by its first ever staff downsizing.  They wanted to do it differently from other banks, and that was to do total outplacement and to handle it internally.  I was asked to head up that effort.  I found space, hired staff, bought equipment, etc.  This was tough for me because I terminated 12 people one day, and then met them at the front door for outplacement the next day.

GS:

Was that when the term “right-sizing” was coined?

EW:

Yes. Someone at Harris did that.  The newspapers here caught on to the phrase.  People here were just traumatized by the staff reductions because this is such a close organization.  If you were right-sized, the bank took really good care of you.  They wanted these people to land on their feet and we were able to get 96% of these people jobs.  I completed this assignment in about 2 years.  After that, I stayed in a staff position that handled compliance, public relations, communications, and government affairs - a whole lot of stuff that no one else wanted to do, but that I felt was important. 

GS:

What does your job entail now?

EW:

Executive Vice President, Community Affairs is my current title.  It is probably the best job in the bank.  I’m doing the things that I want to do, things that I enjoy the most.  It allows me to be a corporate busy body, help shape the company and the policies of the company, where we are and what we do.

GS:

Your comments have been most helpful.  Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me and with the readers of diversityinbusiness.com.