Philip A. Payton, Jr.

Philip Anthony Payton Jr. (February 27, 1876 – August 1917) was an African-American real estate entrepreneur. He is known as the "Father of Harlem", due to his work renting properties in Harlem, New York City, to African Americans.

Early life Philip Anthony Payton Jr. was born on February 27, 1876, in Westfield, Massachusetts. He was born to parents Annie Maria Hammond Ryans and Philip Payton Sr., and was the second of four children in the family, one girl and three boys.

Payton worked in the family barber shop until April 1899, when he decided to make more of himself, and left for New York City, against the wishes of both parents. There, he worked as a department store picture and weighing machine attendant at $6 per week, a barber at $5–6 per week, and finally as a porter in a real estate office at $8 per week. While working as a porter, he got the idea of going into the real estate business on his own.

The New York Times states that by 1900, Payton was already managing several buildings housing African-Americans.

Afro-American Realty Company

On June 15, 1904, with the help of other affluent Blacks, Payton chartered the Afro-American Realty Company, issuing 50,000 shares at $10 each. Payton's business partner was a mortician named James C. Thomas. Along with Thomas, Payton formed the Afro-American Real Estate Company. He appealed to Black investors specifically, both to their social justice and profit motives, with an ad stating: "Today is the time to buy, if you want to be numbered among those of the race who are doing something toward trying to solve the so-called 'Race Problem.'" His prospectus claimed: "The very prejudice that has heretofore worked against us can be turned and used to our profit."

In 1905, the Hudson Realty Company, a white-owned real estate company, had bought a tract of land on West 135th Street near Lenox Avenue, in the heart of Harlem, for residential development. To make the development property more attractive to prospective builders, it also bought three neighboring tenement buildings from Afro-American Realty, evicted their Black tenants, and replaced them with white tenants. Hudson's builders agreed to only rent their properties to whites. In response, the Afro-American Realty Company bought two adjacent apartment houses, evicted their white tenants, and moved in the Black families evicted by Hudson. Eventually, Hudson sold the original three buildings back to the Afro-American at a large loss. The incident augmented Payton's reputation and drew investors to his company. The New York Times called the moves by Hudson and Afro-American Realty a "Real Estate Race War".

The Afro-American Realty Company bought and leased property in Harlem neighborhoods never until then "invaded" by Black tenants, occasioning near panic among neighboring owners. White residents were outraged; one sign advertising for colored tenants for a formerly white building was burned to local acclaim.

The Afro-American Realty Company grew to $1 million in assets with annual rent receipts of $114,000. and the courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs for investments, damages, and legal costs, later that year. The company issued its first and only dividend in June 1907, but never recovered from the negative publicity effects of the lawsuit and the depression of 1907, stopping operations in 1908.

After the Afro-American

Payton continued to buy and manage Harlem real estate for Black tenants, founding the Philip A. Payton Jr. Company, known for its PAP logo. John E. Nail and Henry G. Parker, former directors of the Afro-American Realty Company, founded their own company, Nail & Parker Real Estate, in 1907; it eventually became one of the most successful in New York.

By 1914, The Outlook wrote that three-quarters of the Black population of New York City, including all Blacks of prominence, lived in Harlem; it called Payton "the father of his Negro community". The success of Payton's enterprise could be seen in the neighborhood of 13 West 131st Street, the house he had bought for himself and his wife Maggie in 1903. The entire street was white in 1900; by the time of the 1915 New York State census, the block was almost completely inhabited by Black tenants.

Payton died of liver cancer a month later at his country house in Allenhurst, New Jersey; he was 41. The Philip A. Payton Jr. Company survived after him, managing numerous African-American apartments at least until 1922.

The Philip A. Payton Jr Company was co-managed by John E. Nail and Henry C. Parker, who went on to be known as the "little fathers" of Negro Harlem. They worked to fulfill Payton’s dream of making this Harlem neighborhood a political and cultural capital for African-Americans in the area.