Negroes in the State have accumulated church property valued at about eight million dollars. This excludes three large religious publishing houses, an insurance company, and several banks and plants for manufacturing lighting fixtures. The Baptists, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church have developed publishing businesses - the first two in Nashville, the third in Jackson. As laborer and as artisan, the Negro has been a significant factor in the development of agriculture and in the building of cities. Many of the fine old mansions, which stand today after more than eighty years, were built by hired slave artisans, and some of the modern structures that are the pride of business were built by the free descendants of these artisans.
Negroes excel even today as stone and brick masons.
One of the most prominent of Tennessee's Negro citizens is J. C. Napier, who in 1939 passed his ninety-fourth birthday. His father was a free Negro in Dickson County, and son of the founder of the Napier Iron Works. Napier, an attorney and banker, has served as a member of the Nashville School Board, and was appointed Register of the United States Treasury under President Taft. In Memphis, Napier is honored by a school, a park, and a court which bear his name. Between 1865 and 1905, Negroes were affiliated with almost every department of the government in Memphis.