Viola Mitchell Turner (1900–1988)
Business Executive Durham, NC “No small town in the South can be more gossipy than Wall Street.” Viola Turner was a black woman in business, whose arrival in the offices of the New York Stock Exchange made people look up and take notice, though she was diminutive in statue. Born in Macon, Georgia, Turner went to an AMA school, attended local concerts and picnicked in the parks with her parents, her mother’s basket filled with delicacies. As a graduate of Morris Brown College in Atlanta, she was launched on a career in business throughout the south. When she retired in 1965 as financial vice-president and a member of the board of directors of the NC Mutual Life Insurance Company, she was a testament to her mother’s insistence “on all that education.” < > |