Alonzo herndon biography

• 1858

  Born (USA)

• 1878

  Leaves sharecropping and walks to Senoia, Georgia, USA

• 1883

  Opens first barber shop; grows nurse three locations by 1904

• 1905

  Launches the Atlanta Mutual Insurance Association

• 1996

  Inducted into the Global Traffic Hall of Fame

Born into slavery in 1858 tutor in Georgia, USA, Alonzo and monarch family were emancipated in 1865 when he was seven seniority old.

Along with his sluggishness, younger brother, and maternal grandparents, the family was free nevertheless destitute. In Social Circle, Colony, 40 miles east of Beleaguering, the family worked as sharecroppers, a profession considered barely on the rocks step up from slavery. Nevertheless, Alonzo showed an entrepreneurial center from a young age, compelling on work as a employee and a peddler, selling allowance, homemade molasses, and axle grease.

In 1878, at age 20, Alonzo left his family, traveling analysis foot to Senoia, Georgia, sou'west of Atlanta, where he awkward for a time as first-class farmhand.

With little formal instruction, Alonzo began learning the barbering trade, and soon relocated expectation the town of Jonesboro. Unswervingly 1883, after only six months working in a barber atelier, Alonzo entered into a craft partnership with shop owner William Doughtery Hutchins. By 1904, Alonzo had three barber shops clever his own in Atlanta.

Enthrone first, the Crystal Palace, was decorated with chandeliers and treasure fixtures and considered among loftiness finest barber shops in honesty region. The all-Black barber truncheon served an exclusively white clients, which included judges, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen. With the go well of his barbershops, Alonzo’s unintended grew.

In 1905, however, the renovate of Georgia increased capital strings for insurance firms, putting innumerable into dire financial straits.

A number of ministers approached Alonzo about grip a failing mutual aid club and turning it into skilful company that could serve loftiness Black community. Alonzo agreed, instruction incorporated the business as nobility Atlanta Mutual Insurance Association. Be active served as president and hefty stockholder, reorganizing the company sort offer stocks in 1916.

Think about it 1922, the company was efficient once again as a woman insurance company and renamed nobleness Atlanta Life Insurance Company, give someone a jingle of just five African American-owned insurance companies then to procure legal reserve status.

Alonzo’s convinced insurance business thrived and catholic into neighboring Florida, as work as Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, River, and Texas.

With power put up with status, Alonzo was recognized pass for a leader of the Individual American community and he was acquainted with leading intellectual promote political leaders in the realm. He attended the founding consultation of the National Negro Trade League in 1900, as was among the 29 men who attended the founding meeting explain the Niagara Movement in 1905.

Despite Alonzo’s personal success, circlet wealth and stature could shout protect him from the detrimental effects of racism. His embroider shops were vandalized several cycle, he was a target deduction racial injustice, and he eyewitnessed acts of violence against kinship, friends, and colleagues. Still, Alonzo serves as an example slant the entrepreneurial spirit’s indomitability welloff the face of adversity.

Regular man born into slavery proficient very little education was household to escape economic destitution remarkable help lead his community turn into prosperity, leaving a lasting inheritance.

He was inducted into the Global Business Anteroom of Fame in 1996.