Black Finance Facts: This woman was the first Black millionaire in the United States
Sarah Rector was the first Black female millionaire in the U.S.
She was 11 years old in 1913 when oil was discovered on her land in Oklahoma. White-owned newspapers were openly racist in coverage of her.
Here’s one line from a Kansas City Star article published in 1914: “Such is the transformation “that an unexpected discovery of oil has brought to this 10-year-old negro, ignorant, with apparently limited mental capacity and no idea whatever of what it all means to her.”
The photo above was the most well known photo of her. But a history writer and her family say that’s not her.
Sarah became a millionaire at 18 with oil earnings worth $14 million today and lived in Kansas City for almost 50 years.
Her house became known as the Rector Mansion.
Sources: The Kansas City Star, The Washington Post
This story was originally published February 16, 2023 at 10:02 AM with the headline "Black Finance Facts: This woman was the first Black millionaire in the United States."
