2023 24 Black Pages FINAL 2 - Flipbook - Page 115
Historian, researcher, and
educator Dr. Thomas Duval is a
walking talking testament to the power
of that period. Although Duval is in his
late seventies, he and his brothers
Paul and Steve assisted their father in
their family’s upholstery business Paul
Duval and Son, established in 1883 by
their grandfather, with keeping the
founder’s dream alive as youth and
young adults. “Macon experienced a lot
of growth because Black people had
the mindset to go into business to not
just survive, but to thrive,” Duval said, also pointing out that the reconstruction era was an
immense growth period.
Overcoming Odds
Cotton’s reign as king slowed in Macon as a new century took hold. The selling of
human cargo on Poplar Avenue and the lifting of bales by Blacks there by then was
equalized by the educational and economic empowerment of the Black community.
In 1899 in Atlanta at the annual Negro in Business
Conference for the Study of Negro Problems led by
W.E.B. DuBois, a survey was distributed as an additional
means of strengthening the Black community.
Eighty miles to the south in Macon a year later,
seven delegates: A.D. Webb; L.A. Jones; A.D. Beasley;
W.O. Emery; J.A. Braswell; John Brown; and Thomas
Screen, journeyed to Boston as members of the Booker
T. Washington formed National Negro Business League.
By 1906 Emery becomes a member of the NNBL
executive committee as Macon’s professional Black
population now includes eight doctors and nineteen
grocers.
Pharmacies owned by Jeff Clemons and Central
City Drug Store owned by Emery and Beasley were in the
Macon mix by 1914, the year People’s Health and Life
Insurance Company of Macon was founded. By 1918 the
one and only Black car garage appeared followed by two
banks – Liberty Loan and Investment Company in 1919 and Middle Georgia Saving and
Investment Company in 1921.
Jim Crow had reared its ugly head by now, but despite the constant looming threat of
the loss of life and/or lively hood, Macon Black business owners prevailed. “There were still
barriers,” says Jackson. “But they were able to create a shield of protection for their families
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