At the time Black Enterprise magazine was first mentioned that economy of American was in a transition period. That was a result of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in 1970. The eradication of the law de jure racial segregation opened way to mobility of black and the black middle class came into being. Done with the intension to be used as a resource for current entrepreneur and budding or the existence of black entrepreneurship, Black Enterprise is still the number one guide when it comes to matters that are facing black entrepreneurs and people that are making the difference despite all the obstacles.
When the magazine was created after a lack of information was discovered on the expanding and nascent black entrepreneur community in the American workforce, Earl G. Graves ‘Black Enterprise founder, Sr.’s accomplishment in the publishing as well as media industry has made him to be one of the most successful black entrepreneurs in history. In this article, we will consider some black entrepreneurs in history, mostly focusing on those people who are not yet really covered. Those African-American entrepreneurs in the 18th - 20th century.
Below are the lists of 21 most notable black entrepreneurs in history:
James Forten
James Forten, a Philadelphia sailmaker, created a sailmaking machine that allowed him to own a business that is very profitable. In 1830s, his worth was estimated at $100,000, which is about $2.5 million today. From the wealth he acquired, James Forten made investment in different abolitionist initiatives. And he was also American Anti-Slavery Society vice-president.
Samuel T. Wilcox
Wilcox, In the 1850s was a retail and wholesale grocery store owner in Cincinnati besides starting up a preserving and pickling business. He turned out to be the first established quality grocery stores, selling the highest quality of dried fruit, hams, soaps, and other commodities. As a result of this, he had mostly rich customers contributing to his $140,000/year annual sales about ‘$4.2 million, adjusted for inflation.
Paul Cuffee
Paul Cuffee was born by a Ghanaian Ashanti father and an Aquinnah Wampanoag mother. He was a notable businessman and sea captain in the 18th century. His crews containing of mostly black people served the Atlantic Coast and sailed to Africa and Europe. He contributed to the British effort to resettle freed Slaves after the American Revolution.
Stephen Smith
Stephen Smith was brought up a servant in Pennsylvania. Thomas Boude, a wealthy lumber businessman designated him to work in the lumberyards. In 1822, at the age of 21, when he gained freedom, he kept working in the lumberyards and started his own lumber and coal business. Before 1850s, his annual sale was worth $100,000. In 1857, Stephen Smith’s worth was estimated at $500,000 (about $13.5 million today). Apart from being a businessman, smith was also a minister and chairman of the black abolitionist organization in Columbia.
William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr.
Leidesdorff Jr. was among the most notable black businessmen in America. A very successful man in trade, he owned a successful lumber yard, ship chandlery shop, ship yard and real estate in the 1800s. He built the first hotel in San Francisco and was the first treasurer in the city. He was known as the millionaire of black descent in America; he had an estate worth $.4 million in 1856, which is about $20 million today, adjusted for inflation.
Robert Gordon
Robert Gordon was born a slave; in 1846, he bought his freedom. He made an investment of $15,000 in a Cincinnati coal yard and hired laborers and book keepers. At that time white coal dealers in Cincinnati tried to put Gordon out of the market by selling their coal at a cheaper rate; Gordon hired mulattoes to secretly buy their cheaper coal, and later sold the supply at a price higher when the white coal dealers had no more in their reserves. Before he died in1884, his estate was worth $200,000 (about $5 million today).
Frank McWorter “Free Frank”
Frank McWorter was an American slave that later purchased his freedom. He turned out to be a businessman and a saltpeter manufacturer. He became very successful in 1812, during the War there was high demand for saltpeter. As a result of his success, he also bought the freedom 16 members of his family and even after his death his heirs bought the freedom of his relatives with the inheritance he left behind. Free Frank was the first African-American who started a town in the US; He founded New Philadelphia in Illinois.
Clara Brown
In late 1850, Clara Brown migrated to Colorado at the time of the gold rush, and started a laundry business that was very laundry business; she also served as a cook, nurse maid and mid-wife. Brown invested the money she earned in real estate; she later acquired 7 houses in Central City, 16 lots in Denver and other mines and properties in Colorado.
Isaac Myers
Isaac Myers was not really an entrepreneur; He was among the notable figure that created the first trade unions comprising African-Americans. After the civil war, when 1,000 black ship caulkers lost their jobs, Myers arranged the workers in a union, starting up the Colored Caulkers Trade Union Society. Despite the interest from the National Labor Union, black members are always opposed to membership. Due to this reason, the Colored National Labor Union was created, and Myers was the front-liner. He was later succeeded by Frederick Douglass.
Annie Malone
Annie was one of first & renowned African-American business-women; she started a commercial and educational business “Poro College” that focused on black women’s cosmetics. She developed a chemical used to straighten hair of black women without resulting in any damage to the scalp. Poro College was founded to teach people on black cosmetology. The college was used to create 75,000 jobs for women all around the world. She holds the record as the first black female to become a millionaire in the America. She has an asset worth $14 million in 1920 (about $167 million today).
Frederick Patterson & Charles Richard Patterson
Frederick Patterson was one of the first African-American to start a car manufacturing company. He and his father, Charles Richard Patterson, started the car business C.R. Patterson & Son Company and later bought J.P Lowe 20 years partnership. After the death of his father, Frederick Patterson manufactured the Patterson-Greenfield car and competed with Henry Ford’s Model T. The business later changed to the Greenfield Bus Body Company.
Charles Clinton Spaulding, Aaron McDuffie Moore, John Merrick
In 1898, North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company was co-founded by the 3 partners, which is now the largest and oldest African-American life insurance company in America. All the three men belong to the Durham community: Clinton Spaulding was the general manager of a grocery firm; while Aaron Moore was a physician, and Merrick, an entrepreneur with barbershops across Durham. Then, Durham was known as “Black Wall Street”, popular for the successes blacks were doing in business. Today, the company has an asset estimated at $162 million.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington was among the significant personality in post-Reconstruction America. Although, he was not an entrepreneur, but he was committed to the advancement of economic and educational position of blacks in America. He has 14 books to his name. He used his work to established relationships with known philanthropists and entrepreneur, such as William Howard Taft, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and George Eastman; the relationship he created allowed him to get large donations to different programs and initiatives with the intension to educate African-Americans. He was also the founder of the National Negro Business League.
Maggie Lena Walker
Maggie Walker was the number one black female chartered banker in America. She is the founder and first president of the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank. At the time the bank merged with Richmond, VA banks to form The Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, she then became the chairman of the board of directors.
Madam C.J. Walker
Madam C.J was born with the name Sarah Breedlove. She had a special line of hair and beauty product for black females in her firm known as “Madame C.J Walker Manufacturing”. Just like Annie Malone, she was among the first women in America to be a self-made millionaire; she learnt about the science of black cosmetology through Malone’s Poro College. Most of the philanthropy efforts she did were directed towards anti-lynching campaigns.
Arthur G. Gaston
Arthur Gaston was an entrepreneur that founded a set of businesses throughout Birmingham. Starting with a funeral home and a burial insurance company known as “the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company”, he also founded the A.G. Gaston Construction Company, financial institution (CFS Bancshares) and Citizens Savings and Loan Association. In I960s, Gaston was among America’s richest black men, and he led in the employment of blacks in Alabama.
John H. Johnson
John Johnson was a notable publisher and businessman. He founded Johnson Publishing Company, which publishes the Jet magazines and Ebony. The Negro Digest, the one that preceded Johnson’s Ebony, was done for creating a publication for the blacks that copied the Reader’s Digest pattern. To be able to fund that initial venture, he collected a loan of $500 against furniture owned by his mum. In the year 1982, Johnson turned out to be the first African-American to be on Forbes 400. His Publishing house has over 2,600 employees, with sales of nearly $400 million.
Reginald F. Lewis
In 1992, he was listed on the Forbes 400; Reginald Lewis holds the record as the richest African-American man in the year 1980s. Lewis graduated from Harvard Law School, in 983 he established a venture capital firm “the TLC Group L.P”. He purchased the home sewing pattern business McCall Pattern Company for $22.5 million through the company, and it was bought 3 years later for $65 million. He purchased Beatrice International Foods for $985 million and changed the name to TLC Beatrice International; the beverage, grocery store, and the snack food chain turned out to be the biggest business owned and managed by a black man. The company made revenue of $1.8 billion in the same year, with the record of being the company owned by a black man with $1 billion yearly sales.
Instead of drawing the conclusion I decided to put up a list of useful tools for entrepreneurs:
Market Research Tools:
1. Google Insights Databoard
2. American Fact Finder
3. Business Dynamics Statistics
4. Survery Monkey
5. ClickInsights
Business-/Copy Writing Tools:
1. Grammarly
2. Hemmingway App
3. CES Writers
4. Word Conter
5. OpenOffice Writer
Business Data Analytics Tools:
1. Tableau
2. OpenRefine
3. RapidMiner
4. Google Fusion Tables
5. WolframAlpha
I would like to finish this article with a quote by Mary Tyler Moore:
"Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave."
Posted By: Malek Treblyn
Tuesday, July 21st 2015 at 10:30AM
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