A very special topic
Mahalia Jackson's approach to money, finances, and investments was inextricably linked to her early experiences of poverty and exploitation. This shaped her keen business sense, a deep mistrust of others, and an unconditional desire to maintain control over her income.
Born into extreme poverty in New Orleans, Mahalia had to work from a young age. She worked as a maid, laundress, and cook, initially earning just two dollars a week. Her aunt Duke taught her early on the hard lessons of earning and keeping money. Her uncle Porter advised her never to trust anyone and always to be paid in cash and in full. These lessons stuck with her and led to a lifelong frugality and deep mistrust. Mahalia, who was good at math, quickly realized the importance of saving for her future.
At the age of 20, Mahalia moved to Chicago. After training as a beautician, she opened her own beauty salon, Mahalia's Beauty Salon, on South Indiana Avenue around 1940. She started out with two chairs and rented one out to cover the rent. The salon was very successful and employed up to five or six people. She later expanded her business to include Mahalia's House of Flowers, a profitable flower shop that supplied churches with floral arrangements, especially for funerals. Mourners insisted on buying flowers from her when she sang at funerals, which made the business extremely lucrative.
At the same time, she began investing in real estate early on and was already considered financially well-off by 1945. She purchased a building on Chicago's South Side in the 1940s. In 1957, despite racist threats, she bought a house in the exclusively white Chatham neighborhood of Chicago for $40,000 in cash. This courageous move led to racist threats and her window being shot at, but she stood her ground and called in Mayor Daley and the FBI. In 1969, she finally purchased two condominiums in Hyde Park, Chicago, which she combined into a large apartment overlooking Lake Michigan and which was her last residence.
Her career as a gospel singer began with modest earnings: she earned up to $10 a week at funerals and up to $50 a week at concerts, plus donations. She initially received around $25 per record for recording sessions. But that changed abruptly when she signed a contract with Apollo Records in 1946, which guaranteed her $10,000 a year.
Their hit "Move On Up a Little Higher" was a phenomenal success: it sold 50,000 copies in Chicago alone within four weeks and surpassed the million mark in sales in the US. Within the first year, Mahalia earned over $300,000 in royalties from this song. Other million-selling hits followed, including "Even Me" and "Just Over The Hill" (1.5 million sales each), as well as "In the Upper Room." Her "Silent Night" broke language barriers and sales records in Denmark.
In the late 1950s, according to Ebony Magazine, she earned up to $1 million gross per year, although other estimates put her annual income at $100,000. This immense income and her business acumen contributed significantly to her considerable fortune. It is reported that at the time of her death, she left behind a fortune of over six million dollars, plus another million dollars in royalties and other assets. Other estimates, including those by Jules Schwerin, put her net worth at up to nine million dollars, including her entire real estate holdings, royalties, and investments. Shortly before her death, she instructed her lawyer, Gene Shapiro, to cash in all her savings bonds and get her money immediately in cash, as she wanted to move to Arizona. However, this never happened.
Mahalia Jackson was known for demanding cash payment in advance for her performances. She kept the money in her bra or in the zippered pocket of her handbag and was known for leaving performances with the money in her bra. She counted the takings at the door herself. Once she showed John Sellers 60 bundles of $1,000 bills, totaling $60,000, which she kept under her underwear. During a performance in Mobile, Alabama, she was still missing $1,250 of the $2,500 she was owed, so she sent her assistant to the office to count the money.
Her distrust of banks led her to keep thousands of dollars in small branches. Once, she was refused a $500 withdrawal at a Chicago bank because the white employee did not know her. She was known for holding checks for months and bouncing her own checks. Her lawyer, Gene Shapiro, later helped her invest her money in a large downtown bank that paid higher interest rates. Nevertheless, he was appalled by the state of her finances, which included "contract disputes, real estate mismanagement, percentage disputes, misplaced or misappropriated funds, no portfolio, 'people in need,'" as well as overpaid credit card bills, bounced checks, a year-old savings certificate that never earned interest, forgotten deposits at a small bank, and a recent check for $13,900 that was returned and has now been misplaced.
Mahalia turned down lucrative offers to sing "worldly" music such as jazz or blues because she wanted to remain true to her beliefs as a gospel singer. She felt it was "selling her soul for a dollar."
Mahalia Jackson's social commitment was deeply rooted in her beliefs. She founded the Mahalia Jackson Scholarship Foundation to enable talented young people to receive an education. She donated money from her own pocket to this foundation for many years and insisted on signing all checks personally in order to maintain control over how the funds were allocated. She was particularly committed to supporting Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement financially. For a benefit concert for a daycare center in Long Beach, California (1969), she provided $5,000 for advertising, flyers, and commercials. Her doctor, William Barclay, stated that a "large portion" of his practice consisted of patients referred to him by Mahalia and that she had "paid the bill in full."
A long-cherished dream was to build her own non-denominational temple in Chicago. She collected donations for this, including from celebrities such as the Rockyfellers. The newspaper reported that the purchase price of the K.A.M. Temple was $2,225,000, for which Mahalia personally vouched. She lamented that they had "lost two million dollars."
Her relationship with her longtime pianist Mildred Falls was marked by financial tensions. Mildred Falls, who was Mahalia's loyal accompanist for over 20 years, was often considered underpaid by many of her colleagues. This is a very sensitive issue, which I have discussed in more detail elsewhere. See here!
Later business ventures, such as the fast-food franchise "Mahalia Jackson's Chicken System," which was intended to provide business and employment opportunities for Black people, ultimately lost money and went bankrupt after her death. There were also financial disputes with her second husband, Minters Galloway, whose divorce papers and financial details were published in the press. She had paid him a salary as a "companion" that was below the norm.
Despite health problems in her final years and concerns that her money would "dwindle" if she didn't sing, she left behind a large fortune. Estimates of its size vary widely, ranging from six to ten million dollars, and even twenty million dollars. The largest portion was left to her family.
Mahalia Jackson's financial journey is the story of a remarkable woman who worked her way up from extreme poverty to build a fortune worth millions. Her deep mistrust and desire for control, coupled with a keen business sense, enabled her to succeed financially in an often exploitative industry. At the same time, she was a generous supporter of the civil rights movement and her community, even though her personal financial practices and strictness in business relationships sometimes led to conflict. Her legacy is not only that of an iconic singer, but also that of a financially independent Black woman who forged her own path.
©Thilo Plaesser