Jesse Binga

Jesse Binga (April 10, 1865 – June 13, 1950) was a prominent American businessman who founded the first privately owned African-American bank in Chicago.

Unwilling to conform to de facto, private real-estate segregation, white real estate interests sometimes opposed him violently.

[2] After his bank failed in the Great Depression, Binga was eventually charged with embezzlement, a controversial prosecution in the African American community.

[4]: 75  However, this was about to change as many African Americans began migrating to Northern cities due to the harsh prejudices of Jim Crow segregation, Ku Klux Klan persecution, and poor agricultural employment opportunities.

[6] When Johnson died in 1907, Eudora inherited $200,000 [7] Eventually Binga and his wife bought a house at 5922 South Park Avenue, which is now known as King Drive.

[11]: 40  Despite the bank's new status, he still remained the largest shareholder and his tendency to act impetuously was a personal trait that annoyed his board of directors and would come to play a part in his downfall.

Binga refused to seize the properties of these community institutions and in June 1930 the Auditor General of the State of Illinois closed the bank down.

The prosecution argued that Binga took out inadequately secured loans to speculate in real estate,[16] but his first trial in 1932 ended in a hung jury.

[4]: 79 [11]: 41  Clarence Darrow was Binga's attorney and although virtually retired, attempted to persuade a parole board hearing for his early release.

[17] He didn't succeed and it was nearly two years later that Binga was paroled from Joliet Prison to the custody of a catholic priest Rev Joseph F Eckert in 1938.

[18] His wife had died in 1933 [3]: 21  and on his release from prison in 1938, he was given a $15 a week job as a janitor at St. Anselm's Church, spending the remainder of his life in poverty.