The Founders of CityFirst
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Debbi Hurd Baptist
A 15-year veteran of banking, finance and capital markets transactions, Debbi Hurd Baptist was the founding president and CEO of the first community development bank in the nation’s capital. Prior to her death on November 6, 2000, Ms. Baptist served as one of CityFirst’s organizing directors and shareholders, making an indelible imprint on the inaugural business planning, structuring and capitalization of the bank.
Prior to joining CityFirst, Ms. Baptist served for six years as a director of community development investments in the Multifamily Division at Freddie Mac, where she was responsible for the development and management of housing tax credits and other mortgage products to increase the purchase volume of affordable rental housing. Under her leadership, the tax credit portfolio grew from $50 million to over $1 billion, providing capital to 1500 projects nationwide. She served on the board of Christmas in April USA, the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, Homes for America, and TRM Copy Center Corporation.
Ms. Hurd held a B.A. in Economics from Smith College, a Master’s in Urban Design and Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and an M.B.A in finance from George Washington University.
Each year, CityFirst honors partners who exemplify Ms. Baptist’s commitment to improving the economic health and access to capital in low-wealth communities with the Baptist Award.
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Lloyd D. Smith
The founding organizing director for City First Bank, Lloyd D. Smith’s pioneering leadership in housing, community and economic development in the Washington Metropolitan area yields a long and storied list of accomplishments.
As the President and CEO of the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, during the 1980s and 1990s, Smith ushered in an era of unprecedented growth, leading the organization from an annual budget of $115,000 to over $5 million. Smith became well known for his signature single and multifamily housing and mixed-use retail properties, and for employing social service programs in the communities he helped develop. Prior to joining City First Bank, he had acquired some 27 years of federal and district government service and was a mayoral appointee to the Board of the National Capital Revitalization Corporation. He became Chairman and served as acting President of both organizations, and was featured in several documentaries.
In 1991, Mr. Smith helped organize the visit of former First Lady Barbara Bush and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom to DC’s Ward 7; following her visit a street in the ward was named Queen Elizabeth’s Way. President Clinton toured the area in 1993. That same year, Lloyd Smith met with two-dozen community development leaders gathered in a Washington, DC church basement. Organizers were concerned about the toll on low-income neighborhoods from decades of divestment and discrimination. Confident that the marketplace could do a better job, they worked to create a financial institution to help neighborhoods that had been ignored.
City First Bank launched in late 1998. Smith was the recipient of numerous national and international awards and honors, including the 1993 Local Minority Business Advocate Award; 1994 Points of Light Foundation Community Leadership Award; the DC Building Industry Association’s Community Service Award; and the Local Minority Business Advocate Award presented at the 8th Annual Salute to Blacks in Business. Following these illustrious accomplishments, Mr. Smith was inducted into the District of Columbia Hall of Fame Society in 2002.
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Dr. H. Claude Hudson
Doctor Henry Claude Hudson founded Broadway Federal Savings and Loan in 1946 and, beginning in 1949, served as Chair of the Board of Directors for 23 years. He was a dentist, lawyer and businessman from Marksville, Louisiana. The son of a Louisiana slave, he dedicated his life to civil rights advocacy and was a pioneer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, serving as the president of the first branch in Shreveport, LA from 1921-23.
Mr. Hudson had earned his dentistry degree from Howard University in 1913 and eventually settled with his family in Los Angeles, CA. Within a year of relocating, he was elected president of the NAACP’s L.A. branch, earning him the title "Mr. NAACP" from locals, many of whom recognized him as the city's most respected Black leader.
At the age of 41, he enrolled in Loyola Law School, in the four-year evening program, while actively practicing dentistry. Mr. Hudson was Loyola's first Black graduate in 1931. Although he never practiced law in the traditional sense, he applied his knowledge to his work with the NAACP and was named to the national Board of Directors in 1953 . He was instrumental in desegregating Los Angeles beaches and in establishing the Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital.
At the time of Broadway Federal’s founding, it was the nation's second largest Black savings and loan association. In 1976, Mr. Hudson won Los Angeles County's highest honor, the "Distinguished Service Medal."
The History of CityFirst
Our legacy and history matter at City First Bank. Our founders in Los Angeles, CA and Washington, DC were local leaders who saw a need in the community for a bank that addresses the lack of access to capital in historically excluded and disinvested urban, majority minority communities.
Broadway Federal Savings and Loan opened its doors to its first customers on January 11, 1947, in LA. Founded by three African American entrepreneurs, H.A. Howard, a real estate broker and investor who served as the bank’s first manager; Dr. H. Claude Hudson, a dentist, lawyer and civil rights advocate; and Paul Revere Williams, the premier African American architect in the United States, Broadway Federal was established to provide access to homeownership for returning African American soldiers of World War II.
In 1998, Broadway received the Social Compact Award for its community development partnership with the Inglewood Neighborhood Housing Services. It was recognized again in 1999 when it was the recipient of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco's Community Partnership Award.
On the East Coast, in 1993, two-dozen community members similarly gathered in a church basement to serve the underserved neighbors in DC, and opened the doors as City First Bank in November 1998 with Debbi Hurd Baptist of Freddie Mac as CEO, Lloyd Smith of the Marshall Heights Community Development Corporation as Chairman, and some $9.4 million in investments from public and private sources. CityFirst became the first bank in the nation’s capital certified as a CDFI, in 1999.
On April 1, 2021, amid a global health crisis and national reawakening to systemic racial and economic disparities, Broadway Federal Bank, f.s.b. and City First Bank, N.A. led an historic merger of equals to form the largest Black-led MDI in the nation – the first Black-led bank to reach $1 billion in assets under management.
The Company is publicly traded on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the symbol “BYFC,” through our bank holding company, Broadway Financial Corporation, and is regulated by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. City First Bank is regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the bank’s deposits are insured up to applicable limits by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. City First Bank is a US Treasury certified Community Development Financial Institution, an OCC designated MDI, a certified BCorp, and a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values.