Robert R. Church Sr.

Robert Reed Church Sr. was born on the eighteenth of June 1839 at Holly Springs, Mississippi, into slavery. He was the son of Emmeline, an enslaved seamstress who died when he was twelve, and Charles B. Church, a white steamboat captain who owned vessels on the Mississippi River. His father took him aboard the riverboats, where the boy labored as a cabin boy and steward on the Memphis-to-New Orleans runs, absorbing the commerce and contacts of the river trade.

When Memphis fell to Union forces in 1862 and the boat he worked was seized, Church made his way to freedom and to the city that would become his life's work. He began humbly — a stableboy, an assistant, a saloonkeeper — and endured the violence of the 1866 Memphis massacre, in which he was shot yet refused to leave. Through discipline and foresight he steadily built his footing.

His fortune rose from tragedy. During the yellow fever epidemics of 1878-79, as terrified residents fled and Memphis was reduced to a taxing district, Church bought devalued land and buildings, trusting the city would recover. As a citizen he was the first to purchase a one-thousand-dollar municipal bond to help restore the city's charter. His real estate holdings made him, by report, the first African American millionaire of the South.

He turned his wealth toward his people: a park, a playground, an auditorium, and in 1906 the Solvent Savings Bank and Trust, Memphis's first Black-owned bank, which opened credit to Black families and businesses. His daughter, Mary Church Terrell, carried his spirit into the fight for equality. Robert Reed Church Sr. died in 1912, having built dignity and enterprise from bondage. May his name be honored.