The True Reformer Building in Washington, is the first building in the country funded, designed, built and owned by African Americans after Reconstruction.
The purpose of the True Reformers was clear. Founded by William Washington Browne as a Black temperance organization in the late 19th century, it later grew into an insurance, banking and newspaper enterprise that catered to Black people in need of business loans, aid and services they couldn’t obtain from White-owned businesses, according to Encyclopedia Virginia. At one point it was the largest Black-owned business in the United States.
“This is literally hallowed ground,” Candice C. Jones, the Public Welfare Foundation’s chief executive, said last week as she led a tour through the 119-year-old building, which was updated in 2001 and remodeled again in 2019 just before the pandemic.“Why is this landmark significant?” Jones asked. “Because just a couple of blocks over on Vermont used to be a tent town where Black people fleeing racial terror in the South would come and set up refuge.
“It can’t all be about dismantling. It’s about what you’re building,” Jones said. “And the only thing that we’re going to be able to build is truly more investment in communities of color.” “All of the great clubs were there,” Jackson said. “And all of the great performers would play there. Duke Ellington, Ms. Lena Horne.”Jackson said Ellington occasionally played shows in the building’s auditorium and gymnasium between basketball games.
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