The St. Paul echo. [volume] (St. Paul ;) 1925-1927, 1927-05-28
PLAN AND WORK
B|NCA'S PROGRAM
To win SUCCESS
Thirty-fOur Years Ago, Barber
and Pullman Porter, Now
Bank President.
One Of Ten Children
Opens Real Estate Office on
South State Street With
$40 Capital.
Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune)
BY JAMES ODONNELL BENNETT.
Certain sayings Of Jesse Binga:
Learn O. buSineSS-dnd then

BY JAMES O'DONNELL BENNETT.
Certain sayings of Jesse Binga:
Learn business-and then
mind it.
Learn something not so you
kno1o about it but so you know 1t.
Save, saue, saue, and aohen
youve got it then giue, give, giUe.
Nothing is so easy or so aodste-
tul as the aoork of hating-ercept
hating aoorE And that goes for
races as aoeH as for individuals.
Get competency. Then the
,oorld-,phite or colored-aOiH con-
cede that you are competent.
ONLY business contacts a1ith the
community as q 11hole-10hite and
colored-a1M educate the colored
man in business.
Learn business: Establish a
credit: Provide for your oacn
1odnts. That is my message to
our group.
You can be mental or man
of business. But to get out of
the mental place requires the
thrift that produces property. And
property enlarges life. Work, then,
not for gain alone but for the
enlarged life that honest gains
create.
Life is pretty much aoIat you
make it-and making it big means
using every day of it.
Be honest.
Such is Jesse Binga.
Take him or leave him, be aloof or
be civil to him, bomb his home-a
pleasantly he has five times undergone
or ask him for a thousand dollars for
a hospital-such he is as above set
forth in certain of his sayings.
Such he is as he sits at his 80 square
feet of glass topped table in his marble
and bronze bank in the heart of the
black belt.
There he sits, as quietly dressed as
he is quiet spoken, with close to two
million dollars worth of deposits on
his mind; there he sits-an immense
fact, with the Carlylean concreteness
in it.
COEOred, Calm, Successful.
In other words, you cannot gai"sa> V
Jesse Rinpa. colored man W.
b 60, .. I~..-u., III Ine matter uf co.or
So | went down to the bank to tall
with him about it.
Thirtyfour years ago Jesse Binga
then in his twenties, came to Chicago
with ten dollars in his pocket; yester
day Jesse Binga sat in his Binga State
bank" under Clearing House super
vision said the gold letters on the
rlete glass windows-and when he said
/" We should do this" twenty-five cash
iels. te.lerS, secretaries and filins
c'crks-many of them university grad
uatea--saw to it.
He wore gray business suit. H
used no resounding words. He spoli
OF Negroes as "men of color and o
the colored race in Chicago as lou
group" He had to be drawn on t
toll ahor+ birSaIf ord ubap I 11rpe
that surely there VS. profitable dis
course in the story Of a man who ha,
begun as barber and Pullman porte
ard now was millionaire banker, h
said Yes, there's volume in ever.
mani often say that"
Many of Mothers Traits.
Jesse Binga's father was a barber
his mother, builder. From her, prob
ably. comes his passion for huiidin;
and rebuilding. From her, certainly
h. learned much about building
learned to tell approximate costs an
to know materials. Binga Rows,
which she built in Detroit, are Still
standing. She had trading genius, toe
The Hrst consignment of great lake
white fish ever sent south of Mas1I
and DiXon's line was shipped by heI
and the first cargo of sweet pOtatCe
to reach the Gogebic iron region wa
one of her ventures.
For generations there seems to ha,
been a pronounced strain of initiativ
in the family.
Must have been about two Ger
turies ago." said Banker Binga, !" tina
the Bingas came up from the island
to Montreal. AS long ago as 1880 ther
was a farm near Amherstburg, in tn
province of Ontario, in the name of tn
Bingas."