Thomas C. Miller, a pawnbroker and auctioneer who built a small real estate empire. Miller was light skinned and charming and was thus considered a nonthreatening “good Negro” by some whites, at least for a time. As early as 1880, Miller was a respected deputy sheriff. By 1889, he owned a combination saloon and restaurant on Dock Street—the only such establishment in Wilmington operated by a black man at the time.
