First Black Woman Banker. They Erased Her From History. The extraordinary true story of Maggie Lena Walker (1864-1934), the first African American woman to charter a bank in United States history. Born to a formerly enslaved mother in Richmond, Virginia, Walker opened St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in 1903 with over $9,000 in deposits and served as president for 30 years—safely guiding it through the Great Depression. But banking was just the beginning. In 1902, she founded The St. Luke Herald news