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F. Checking for understanding-
1. Cross work completed
2.
3.Robert McCants Andrews (c. 1891-1932) was born in South Carolina
to Amos J. Andrews and Emma A. McCants. Andrews graduated from Howard
University in 1915 and attended Harvard Law School until 1919. He
was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1921 and practiced in Durham,
probably as an attorney for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance
Company. Not much is known about Andrews's youth or education, but
while in Durham he was an advocate for civil rights, joining several
other black leaders from Durham in a push to register African Americans
to vote. In 1932, at age 41, Andrews died of peritonitis at Lincoln
Hospital in Durham. He was buried in Sumter, South Carolina.
John Merrick, a prominent African American businessman, died in 1919,
and Andrews's biography of him, which appeared the following year,
may have been published or commissioned by North Carolina Mutual Life
Insurance to commemorate him. This biography, according to Andrews's
opening "apologia," aims not only to recount Merrick's life but also
to interpret his actions and the conditions that shaped him. Throughout
the work, Andrews provides background on Durham's changing political
and social landscape as the city grew from a war-ravaged tobacco town
to an industrial hub and home to the United States' largest and most
successful black business, the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance
Company. In addition, the work provides brief biographical sketches
of Merrick's long-time partners, Aaron M. Moore (d. 1923) and Charles
C. Spaulding (d.1952). Andrews calls these three men "the triangle,"
comparable in brilliance to the three stars of a constellation.
Merrick was born on December 7, 1859, to a slave mother in Clinton,
North Carolina, and worked beginning at age 12 in a brickyard in Chapel
Hill. He also aided in the construction of Shaw University and later
became first a boot-black and then a barber at W.G. Otey's shop in
Raleigh. In 1880, after he married and had a daughter, Merrick moved
his family to Durham to open a new barber shop with his partner, John
Wright, with whom he worked in Raleigh. Merrick and Wright's venture
was profitable, so they purchased adjoining lots and built homes on
Pettigrew Street in a section of Durham whites termed "Hayti" to connote
its predominantly African American population. By 1887, Merrick owned
more land as well as rental property and moved his expanding family
into a "pretentious" home on Fayetteville Road. He also developed
and marketed an anti-dandruff tonic. Wright sold his share of their
business to Merrick and moved to Washington, D.C., in 1892, but the
business continued to grow to five shops and served such distinguished
patrons as William Jennings Bryan. Andrews claims that the barber
shop became Merrick's college, for he learned much from his conversations
with his patrons, who included traveling professors and important
businessmen, and as their barber, Merrick was privy to these men's
consul and earned their trust as well as their friendship.
Andrews also chronicles Merrick's community involvement. While still
maintaining his successful business, Merrick helped acquire and organize
Durham's Royal Knights of King David, a fraternal organization with
insurance interests, and in 1898 he founded the North Carolina Mutual
and Provident Association, the basis of his most successful venture.
He also served as president of Lincoln Hospital and helped establish
Durham's first African American bank and drug store. According to
Andrews, Merrick and Moore had only one unsuccessful project, the
Durham Textile Mill,
Early on, it appeared as if the North Carolina without pay while |
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