Flip to Depositors greeted by locked doors at the Erie National Bank, Sixth and Erie Avenue, Philadelphia, PA, 1931.Close Window
Credit: John Mosley Collection, Courtesy Charles L. Blockson Afro American Collection, Temple University.
In 1921, Major R.R. Wright of Atlanta moved to Philadelphia and founded the Citizens and Southern Bank on the 1800 block of South Street to serve the working people of black Philadelphia. Having witnessed the collapse of other African-American banks, Wright followed conservative lending policies that kept his bank small, but solvent. When President Roosevelt ended the bank moratorium that he had ordered after taking office in March 1933, Citizens and Southern was one of the first banks in the nation to reopen.
