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Jesse Binga, Chicago Businessman born

Jesse Binga

*Jesse Binga was born on this date in 1865.  He was a Black businessman.

He was born in Detroit, the son of William W. Binga, a barber, and native of Ontario, Canada, and Adelphia Lewis Binga, the owner of extensive property in Rochester and Detroit.  As a teenager, he dropped out of high school and first collected rent on his mother’s property in Detroit.  He later moved to Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, and then Oakland, California, working as a barber in each city. Binga also worked as a Pullman porter and, during that time, acquired a property in Pocatello, Idaho, which he profitably sold.

Binga settled in Chicago in 1893, where his first real estate ventures were relatively modest. He began by purchasing run-down buildings, repairing, and renting them. Binga also married Eudora Johnson, who provided him with additional assets and considerable social prestige, and by 1908 Binga had built up enough wealth that he was able to weigh brighter aspirations. As the Black population of Chicago grew in the first two decades of the 20th Century, Binga opened the Binga State Bank in 1921 with deposits of over $200,000. Within three years, the bank had deposits of over $1.3 million.

The Binga State Bank provided Chicago's Black community with an option other than relying on white-owned banks, which often discriminated against and with predatory lenders who often entrapped working-class Black residents who wanted to purchase homes or establish businesses.  The bank also employed several Blacks in rare, well-compensated white-collar occupations and created a sense of pride and achievement in Black community business ventures.  Binga became the owner of several South Side Chicago properties and a leading philanthropist.

As a successful entrepreneur, Binga chose to move his family into an all-white neighborhood where he and his family became a target of terrorists who opposed his residence outside the Black community. His home was bombed five times in 1919 to get him and his family to leave the neighborhood. In 1929 Jesse Binga opened the Arcade Building, a stunning five-story office building with a richly decorated interior. Built at the corner of 35th and South State Streets, just north of Chicago’s existing Black business district, the Arcade signaled Binga's impressive entrepreneurial achievements. It solidified his place among Chicago's Black elite.

Binga faced other challenges at the beginning of the Great Depression. In 1930 the Binga State Bank was closed. In 1933, Binga was convicted of embezzlement of $22,000 from bank funds and was sentenced to ten years in prison. Binga was released after three years thanks to petitions from his supporters in Chicago, including prominent attorney Clarence Darrow and religious leader George Griffing. After his release, Binga spent the rest of his life working as a handyman and usher at Saint Anselm's Catholic Church. Binga's rise from relative poverty to become the wealthiest Black entrepreneur and banker in Chicago in the late 19th century earned him a national reputation. Jesse Binga died in Chicago on June 13, 1950.

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