Introducing Greenwood Bank

by Melvin Andre & Joshua Onyirimba

“It’s no secret the current financial system has failed at keeping wealth in the Black and Latinx community” Rapper and Political Activist “Killer Mike” has partnered with the founder of Bounce TV, Ryan Glover, and Andre Young, the former mayor of Atlanta to create Greenwood Bank, a new online banking service. Greenwood was created to address the current financial system by reinvesting and recirculating its dollars back into Black and Latinx communities. As stated on their webpage, “Our communities suffer from a lack of wealth, money circulation..., and generational transfer. That is why we created a new Black-owned financial institution”. They believe that banking ethically to build black wealth includes recirculating wealth. This financial institution uses a mobile banking platform and draws inspiration from the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, also known as “Black Wall Street” in the early 1900s. A dollar circulated in the Greenwood District 36 times before leaving the community. Today, a dollar stays in the Black and Latinx community for 6 hours. Greenwood Avenue was compared favorably to Beale Street in Memphis and State Street in Chicago where recirculation of Black wealth occurred regularly. According to the Oklahoma History Society, the underlying social and economic tension in Tulsa sparked the worst racial violence in American History, with around 300 lives lost and millions of property damage leaving the 35-sq block area to ruins after the flames. The new digital bank supports Black and Latinx communities in 4 different ways.

1. First, the bank provides 5 meals to a food-insecure family through Goodr each time an account is created.

2. Every time you purchase something with Greenwood, they’ll round up the spare change to support HBCUs through the UNCF, reinforce our commitment to civil rights with NAACP, or fight hunger with Goodr, at your discretion.

3. A monthly gift of $10,000 to a Black or Latinx business

4. Sponsoring the Greenwood Cultural Center

Greenwood Progress and how we can support? So far, Greenwood bank has secured 3 million dollars in seed funding from private investors as the first digital banking platform for Black/Latinx people and business owners. The newly founded bank has been accepting applications on a rolling basis since October in preparation for it’s January 21st launch. Aside from applying directly to the bank, you can support through its social media, word of mouth, and just merely applying their own initiatives into your own daily lives as an “ally”. It’s going to be exciting to see where Greenwood goes and FEC fully backs the “modern-day banking for the culture” Sources: https://bankgreenwood.com/about/ Hannibal B. Johnson, “Greenwood District,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=GR024. https://thesource.com/2020/10/12/killer-mike-launches-digital-banking-app-greenwood-to-benefit-black-and-latino-communities/