C. W. Allen

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C. W. Allen (born October 17, 1872) was an American businessman and a prominent Black citizen in Mobile, Alabama, during the early 1900s. Born to a poor family, he attended local public schools and Emerson Institute, a school for African Americans. He started working at 15 and spent ten years as a carrier for the Mobile post office. He then went into real estate, partnering with James T. Peterson in Peterson & Allen, one of Alabama’s leading firms.

In 1904 he and Mr. Harney bought the funeral firm A. N. Johnson and modernized it. By 1911, the firm interred about one-third of Mobile’s deaths, regardless of race. A. N. Johnson also published the Mobile Weekly Press, a key Black community paper.

Allen was active in fraternal orders, serving as Secretary-Treasurer of the Masonic Endowment Fund for Alabama and being a leading member of the Knights of Pythias and Odd Fellows. He was part of the Republican State Executive Committee and attended the 1908 Republican National Convention as a delegate.

He married Josephine Blackledge in 1893; she was a teacher who started the Josephine Allen Private School in 1898. They had one son.