Freedom National Bank was an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

owned bank in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

(

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

) founded in 1964 and shut down in 1990. Freedom National served Harlem's Black community and was one of the largest Black owned banks in the U.S. Its main office was at 275 West 125th Street.

History

Freedom National Bank was founded in 1964 by investors including Jackie Robinson and Dunbar Simms McLaurin (1920–1973). ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' referred to it as "biracial" when it was founded in 1964. A 1966 ''Harvard Crimson'' article was critical of the bank. Freedom National competed with another Black owned and focused bank, the older Carver Federal Savings and Loan Association (now Carver Bancorp). Freedom National failed in 1990 during a recession as it faced loan defaults and internal division. When it was shut down, Freedom National had $101.9 million in assets, two branches in Brooklyn, 22,000 depositors, and 97 employees. The bank had also struggled in the mid-1970s but was able to return to profitability. In 1990, the

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is one of two agencies that supply deposit insurance to depositors in American depository institutions, the other being the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates and insures cr ...

(FDIC) bailed out depositors up to the U.S. government's $100,000 guarantee for deposits. The decision was seen as a serious "blunder", in contrast to FDIC's treatment of the vast majority of "800 bank failures in the last four years". In those cases, FDIC did not just pay off insured accounts, but instead facilitated new owners to take over failed banks so that the customers received all their money back.

References

Bank failures in the United States Banks established in 1964 Banks disestablished in 1990 Defunct banks of the United States 1964 establishments in New York City 1990 disestablishments in New York (state) Harlem {{US-bank-stub