Broker After Dropping Out of College

He was raised by his mother, a cook. He dropped out of college. Later, he became interested in real estate, earned his license to sell real estate and became a banker, civic leader, and developer. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

EW was the great-grandson of a slave, born in southern Alabama. He never knew his father. His mother worked as a cook in a café, raising EW in a ‘shotgun house’ – barely 12 feet wide with rooms end to end, heated by lumps of coal that EW and his brothers grabbed from passing (coal-fired) trains. 

“We rented. We didn’t own any land. We didn’t own anything” said EW years later.

CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER

Looking back from the perspective of an adult, EW recalls he had no specific job or career thoughts as a child. 

EDUCATION

Following high school graduation, EW enrolled in a local college but dropped out to get married. 

FIRST CAREER

Coal miner.

SECOND CAREER

EW’s ‘dream job’ (at that time): working in a steel mill. 

THIRD CAREER

After tiring of the hard labor and extreme heat while working in a steel mill, EW relocated to California, where he waited on tables in a hotel. As a server, EW made an easy transition to other serving food on railroad dining cars for the New York Central and Seaboard Air Line railroads.

MILITARY SERVICE

EW served for several years in the U.S. Navy, most of it within sea combat zones.

FOURTH CAREER

Following his Honorable Discharge from the Navy in New York City, a friend suggested to EW that he consider a career in real estate. EW studied real estate laws and practices diligently within a formal real estate Institute. 

Upon earning his real estate license by passing the state’s licensing test, EW worked as an entry-level, real estate salesperson for several agencies, steadily meeting others within the real estate business and developing a reputation for honesty and dedication to informing his clients about their options and recommending the best strategies for buying or selling, depending on who he was representing at the time. 

EW succeeded by making favorable, personal connections with more established real estate firms that referred business to him. “The business that they didn’t want was like a piece of cake to me.” Said EW. “They didn’t need it. So they said: ‘Give it to EW’.“

NETWORKING – IMPORTANT TO BUILD A CAREER

EW befriended a fellow minority businessman who was the founder of a mutual life insurance company and a political ‘powerhouse’ within the local, minority community (and coincidentally, the father-in-law of a future New York City Mayor of minority descent).

EW was more plain-spoken than a forceful politician, so he was able to work with members of a political party different than the one in which he was registered to vote. 

CAREER SATISFACTION

By working hard to assist his customers and train and motivate his employees to treat customers with respect and professionalism, EW’s real estate firm was sufficiently well regarded to be hired by New York State to manage properties taken over for the redevelopment of Times Square in New York City. Eventually EW’s firm was managing 6,000 apartments in 20 properties within several different New York City boroughs. 

By managing so many properties at the same time, EW’s firm was able to ‘pool’ the rental income and spend it on local businesses. As EW said later: “Do you realize what it means if that money is channeled to local businesses by hiring Black plumbers, painters and contractors when they could provide the same quality services as traditional contractors but at discount, volume prices to support their businesses and their families?” 

While serving as President of a local Real Estate Board (organization of real estate professionals whose goal was to promote ideas for honest and professional representation of real estate clients: buyers and sellers plus commercial developers), EW also served as a trustee of the college from which he had dropped out earlier in his adult life and as a trustee of a different university, part of the “HBCU” group of “Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”

EW was among the founders of a Federal Savings and Loan bank which earned a positive reputation for lending to prospective Black and Hispanic home buyers in neighborhoods like Harlem, where applicants had been automatically rejected by other banks (the process known as ‘red lining’).