John Henry Pinkard (1865 – January 8, 1934) was a businessman, banker, and herb doctor in Roanoke, Virginia.
But US Census records suggest the herbalist and land developer was born during the Civil War.
[3] Pinkard lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the turn of the century, where he ran a confectionary shop.
"Pinkard, a tall man who wore a black coat, carried a gold-headed cane and rode in a Packard driven by a chauffeur, was married three times but had no children.
During this period of segregation before the Great Depression, it was difficult to obtain credit for black families, especially from white owned banks.
One of these banks was the "Acorn Small Loan Company", which was licensed by the Commonwealth of Virginia in Roanoke.
The Roanoke Academy of Medicine, the professional organization of white physicians, may have been involved in instigating legal action against Dr. Pinkard in at least one case.
Some of Pinkard's Sanguinaria Compound, made from bloodroot or bloodwort, was seized by federal officials in 1931 for violating the Food and Drug Act.
[12] Many of his concoctions were based on slave medicine, traditional rural Virginian medical practices, and Native American herb lore.
During the 1920s, he developed "Pinkard Court", a housing area expressly for blacks in segregated Roanoke.
[14] In a retrospective, the Roanoke Times published a black and white photo by staff photographer Wayne Scarberry on September 12, 2017, showing a section of Pinkard Court.