Charles Clinton Spaulding

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Charles Clinton Spaulding (born August 1, 1874 in Columbus County, North Carolina - died August 1, 1952, in Durham, North Carolina) was a prominent business leader who founded North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company into American largest black-owned business, with assets of over 40 million at his death.

He started out as a dishwasher and later, general manager of a grocery company when John Merrick, a progressive barber, and A. M. Moore, a practicing physician, thought of an idea of an insurance company in 1899 (then named North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association) and enlisted Spaulding as general manager.

He provided leadership in the National Negro Insurance Association and the National Negro Bankers Association by 1920. In 1926 he was awarded the Harmon Foundation Gold Medal for distinguished achievement in business; Shaw University, Tuskegee Institute, and Atlanta University conferred honorary doctorates of law on him; and in 1942 the New York Chamber of Commerce, mainly a white body, elected him to membership.

He was also active in politics. As national chairman of the Urban League's Emergency Advisory Council from 1930 - 1939, he campaigned to secure New Deal jobs for African-Americans.