Dr. John Henry Pinkard (1865 - 1934) was a businessman, banker, and herb doctor in Roanoke, Virginia. At one time he was the richest black man in town.
Dr. Pinkard was born in Franklin County, Virginia during the last year of the Civil War. Because of his family's poverty in rural Virginia during the Reconstruction, he quit school at the age of eleven to earn some money for his family. By the age of fifteen, he was a supervisor of a "dirt cut" crew for the Norfolk and Western Railroad.[1]
Dr. John Henry Pinkard also ran three banks, mostly dealing in banking for blacks. During this period of segregation before the Great Depression, it was difficult to obtain credit for black families, especially from white owned banks. Many of the banks operated for black clientele specialized in small loans, crop loans, and savings. One of these banks was the "Acorn Small Loan Company", which was licensed by the Commonwealth of Virginia in Roanoke.[2] He evidently also ran his "Acorn" Drug store in the next building at 1018-1020 Salem Street.[3]
He also was the president of the Afro-American Bank on Salem Avenue in Roanoke.[4]
Although there is no evidence he ever received medical training, he called himself "Doctor", and was locally known as a "yarb doctor," a colloquial name for "herb doctor"[5]. "Pinkard had his scrapes with the law. In 1917, he was charged with practicing medicine without a license. A Roanoke World-News account describes a number of local doctors scribbling notes in the courtroom as Pinkard took the stand and revealed the contents of his famous medicines. Pinkard received a six-month jail sentence. It's not clear if the sentence was ever served."[6] He was also known as a "...clairvoyant, herb doctor and spiritualist."[7]
He had a variety of potions and remedies that he prepared and sold out of his drugstore and shipped across the country. Some of the names were: "Pinkard's Hydrastic Compound" (evidently made from Goldenseal or "Hydrastis canadensis"), "Pinkard's Great Liniment" and "Pinkard's Sanguinaria Compound". Some of Pinkard's Sanguinaria Compound, made from bloodroot or bloodwort, was seized by federal officials in 1931. "Analysis by this department of a sample of the article showed that it consisted essentially of extracts of plant drugs including sanguinaria, sugar, alcohol, and water. It was alleged in the information that the article was misbranded in that certain statements, designs, and devices regarding the therapeutic and curative effects of the article, appearing on the bottle label, falsely and fraudulently represented that it would be effective as a treatment, remedy, and cure for pneumonia, coughs, weak lungs, asthma, kidney, liver, bladder, or any stomach troubles, and effective as a great blood and nerve tonic." He plead guilty and was fined $25.00.[8] Many of his concoctions were based on slave medicine, traditional rural Virginian medical practices, and Native American herb lore.
During the 1920s, he developed "Pinkard Court", a housing area expressly for blacks in segregated Roanoke. "In its heyday, Pinkard Court had its own school, baseball field and a church."[9] "Known among blacks as the "yarb doctor," for herb doctor, Pinkard ran a drugstore on Salem Avenue that dispensed his homemade remedies. He also started three banks for black Roanokers (none endured), built other houses and an apartment building and for a time was the wealthiest black man in town... There are bricks from Pinkard's home at Pinkard Court, saved from the bulldozers, and a sign welcoming visitors to the Pinkard Court Baptist Church. At one point, Pinkard Court also boasted an elementary school."[10]
Pinkard Court School was a one level circular building built for blacks. When segregation was no longer lawful, it was converted to a special needs school for the county.[11]
"He was a lifelong member of Bethel AME Church in Rocky Mount, Virginia. Married three times: Mary Alexander (in Pittsburgh), Hattie Saunders (in Franklin County) and Mary Joyce (in Roanoke County). He had no children." He died of tuberculosis in 1934, and is buried in Franklin county, Virginia.[12]