Carver Federal Savings Bank, opened under the leadership of M. Moran Weston in 1948, is the "largest black-owned financial institution" in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Carver Bancorp, Inc. is its holding company. The bank has been designated by the

U.S. Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).

History

The bank applied for a federal charter "after the state had denied it a charter," and opened "in a simple storefront." Carver Federal Savings Bank was not the first bank named after George Washington Carver. Four years earlier an unrelated bank,

Carver Savings and Loan Association The Carver Savings and Loan Association (Carver S&L) opened in 1944 as the first African-American financial institution in Omaha, Nebraska. Located at 2416 Lake Street next to the historic North 24th Street corridor, it was in the heart of the Nea ...

, opened in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

. Neither of these were the first Black-owned American bank. Carver Federal Savings, however, is the largest and oldest continually Black-operated U.S. bank. M. Moran Weston already had earlier experience as the 1945-founder of a

credit union A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provisi ...

, and, for Carver, had a supporting team of 14. Carver Federal Savings Bank served multiple purposes: * "to help black homeowners obtain first mortgages" * Blacks trained at there went on to work at other banks * along with Carver co-founder Joseph E. Davis, it hired future leaders, such as Richard T. Greene Sr., "who for 30 years was the president and a director."

Branch structure

The bank began operations at 53 West 125th Street in

Harlem, New York Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harl ...

in 1948. On November 5, of that year, Carver Federal Savings and Loan Association received a federal bank charter. Its first branch opened on January 5, 1949, at 53 West 125th Street. In February 1961, Carver opened a second branch in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. In June 1975, a third branch was opened in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. Carver's branch count was seven in 2001; by 2007 it was ten.

Corporate structure

In July 1982, Carver merged with Allied Federal Bank. It became a federal savings bank and changed its name to Carver Federal Savings Bank in 1986. In 1999 the bank "headed off" an attempt by a

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

-based bank to take it over. The bank expanded in 2004 by acquiring ''Independence Federal Savings Bank''.

Carver Federal Savings Bank headquarters

Carver Bank is headquartered in the Lee Building at 1825

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

. Its closest branch is at the location of its previous headquarters, a four-story building at 75 West 125th Street, New York, which it owned and operated since 1956. The bank vacated the building between October 1992 and March 1996, after it was destroyed by an electrical fire. In 2018, it was sold by the bank.

Transition of leadership

From 1948 to 1968, Carver was led by Joseph E. Davis, its first President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). In 1970, Richard Greene was appointed president and CEO and led the bank for the next 25 years. In 1995, Thomas Clark Jr. was appointed director, President, succeeding Greene. In April 1999, Carver's Board of Directors appointed Deborah C. Wright as its second female President and CEO. She retired on December 31, 2014. Effective January 1, 2015 Michael T. Pugh, the President and

Chief Operating Officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the " C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if ...

succeeded Wright as CEO.Aaron Elstein
“Carver Federal names CEO,”
''

Crain's New York Business Crain Communications Inc is an American multi-industry publishing conglomerate based in Detroit, Michigan, United States, with 13 non-US subsidiaries. History Gustavus Dedman (G.D.) Crain, Jr. ( Gustavus Demetrious Crain, Jr.; 1885–1973), pre ...

'', November 18, 2014.

References

A Shaky Pillar in Harlem: Black-Owned Carver Bank Is Resistant to Profitability and Change.
* From the New York Times Archive, July 11, 1999. Story by Leslie Eaton

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Companies listed on the Nasdaq Banks based in New York City Companies formerly listed on NYSE American Black-owned companies of the United States