By Amy Kim
Black entrepreneurship has a long and rich history in the United States, and the story of Atlanta’s rise as a national hub of innovation begins with the business owners who grew during a time of racial animosity. Two of the city’s most notable entrepreneurs, Alonzo Herndon and Herman J. Russell, played a pivotal part in developing the city’s business culture.
Atlanta Life Insurance Company
Since 1905, the Atlanta Life Insurance Company has stood as a pinnacle of entrepreneurial spirit and African American financial achievement. Headquartered in the historic Sweet Auburn district among many other Black-owned businesses, Atlanta Life grew to become the leading African American-owned insurance company in the nation.
Founder Alonzo Herndon was born into slavery. He was a barber, architect, and entrepreneur, and grew to become the wealthiest African American in Atlanta by 1927.
Herndon was one of 29 original members of The Niagara Movement, a civil rights organization created by W.E.B Dubois in 1905 to combat racial segregation and disenfranchisement, and he continued to work towards economic and educational opportunities for minorities in the South throughout his life.
Herndon invested his earnings from three barbershops around the city in property, and by the early 1900s, he was city’s top Black landowner. Early in the century he also opened the Atlanta Life Insurance Company.
With an initial capital investment of $140 ($5,000 today), Herndon sold Atlanta Life’s sole contract — a low-cost occupational accident policy that paid upon death of the policyholder — door-to-door in his neighborhood.
By 1909, Atlanta Life was serving more 23,000 policyholders with the promise of prompt claim payments, which many insurance firms avoided at the time by exploiting numerous loopholes.
With its growing success, Atlanta Life became a legal reserve company in 1922 and began expanding to eight additional states. making up 13 percent of over $140 million of insurance held by the leading Black insurance companies by 1925.
When Norris Herndon succeeded his father as Atlanta Life’s president in 1927, he created the Herndon Foundation, which supported civil rights and efforts to advance African American economic progress. Atlanta Life continued to support the growing protest movement in the 1950s, offering employment for fired teachers and providing bail for arrested students during sit-ins.
Today, Atlanta Life operates in seventeen states, and the Herndon Foundation continues the Herndon family’s legacy, with over $5 million given to supporting education, mentorship, and local non-profit organizations to-date.
Further Reading
H.J. Russell & Company
Herman J. Russell built one of Atlanta’s greatest legacies of African American entrepreneurship and left a lasting impression on the city’s skyline with his construction empire.
A native of Atlanta, Russell grew up in the segregated South during the early years of the civil rights movement. He began to explore property development and investment in high school and inherited his father’s plastering and repair services business after graduating from Tuskegee University. Russell continued to take on larger projects and expanded into general contracting, founding the H.J. Russell Construction Company.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Russell continued to grow his business reputation, partnering with white-owned construction companies and expanding into both public and private sectors.
Russell’s projects have included some of the city’s most iconic sites, like the Georgia Dome, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and Turner Field.
By the 2000s, H.J. Russell & Company had become the largest Minority Business Enterprise real estate firm in the country and a national leader in the construction and development industry.
His booming commercial success allowed Russell to support Atlanta’s Black community and become a respected civic and community leader.
In the 1960s, Russell became the first Black member of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and three years later, took over as president. Russell exerted his economic and social influence during the civil rights movement, joining the likes of Andrew Young and Martin Luther King Jr. and fueling Maynard Jackson’s win as Atlanta’s first Black mayor in 1973.
In addition to supporting local charities and churches, Russell has pledged $4 million toward entrepreneurship programs at Clark Atlanta University, Georgia State University, and Morehouse College.
After Russell’s death in 2014, sons H. Jerome and Michael became executives in the company. As they continue to build up Atlanta’s skyline, the family business continues to support the local community through Russell CARES, a company initiative to fund and support education, youth, entrepreneurship, and affordable housing in Atlanta.