Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem
Kevin McGruder
Columbia University Press
At the turn of the early twentieth century, Harlem, NY was predominantly white. Black real estate entrepreneur Philip Payton played a central role in Harlem’s transformation, founding the Afro-American Realty Company in 1903, and vowing to vanquish housing discrimination. Yet while Payton “opened” Harlem streets, his business model depended on continued racial segregation. Like white real estate investors, he benefited from the lack of housing options available to desperate Black tenants by charging higher rents, developing a specialty in renting all-Black buildings, rather than the integrated buildings he had once envisioned. His personal successes ultimately entrenched Manhattan’s racial boundaries. McGruder highlights what Payton’s story shows about the limits of seeking advancement through enterprise in a capitalist system deeply implicated in racial inequality.