as Franklin's life. Hard work was their rule. We see them
assuming the rôle of promoter and organizer. And finally we
find them in the rôle of the modern business man. Consequently, we have in Durham to-day the outstanding group of
colored capitalists who have entered the second generation of
business enterprise. This is significant, as few Negro enterprises have survived the personal direction and energy of the
founders. Moreover, these men have mastered the technique
of modern business and acquired the spirit of modern enterprise.
When we trace the history of this development we must begin with the late John Merrick. He was born a slave in 1859 in Sampson County, North Carolina. His early years were spent at work in a brickyard in Chapel Hill. He learned to read and write from the Bible. As he was compelled to support his mother and younger brother, he could not attend school. Although he could not share in the educational advantages which Northern missionaries were offering Negroes during the Reconstruction, he helped as a brickmason to build one of their leading schools, Shaw University in Raleigh. Next we find Mr. Merrick a bootblack and later a barber in the same shop. Full of energy and enterprise, he set out with his wife to work in a new barber shop in Durham, where he was to make his distinguished career. It is a significant fact that Mr. Merrick came to Durham at the time when white men were beginning to devote themselves to the exploitation of the wealth of the South. Of more fundamental influence upon them was the contact with the leading business men such as the Dukes, who were his customers. His biographer, T. McCants Andrews, remarks: "Mr. Merrick's contact with the leading business men of Durham had as much to do with his success as his own personal gifts." We soon find Mr. Merrick the sole proprietor of the barber shop in which he worked and the owner of his home. The story of the organization and the development of the Royal Knights of King David shows that Mr. Merrick possessed the organizing ability and the spirit of the promoter. When an itinerant Baptist preacher from Georgia offered to sell the ritualistic rights to a group of Durham Negroes, Mr. Merrick was
