- Atlanta is one of the southern cities that has been called the Black Mecca for entrepreneurial opportunities.

Alonzo Herndon was Atlanta's first black millionaire.

His journey was similar to black entrepreneurs and other southern black meccas without Alonzo in Atlanta, Robert Reed Church in Memphis, John Merrick in Durham, Ottawa w Gurley in Tulsa, and others whose names may not be recognizable.

Today's landscape for black entrepreneurs would look much different.

My name is Dr. Greg Henley.

I'm a business educator and entrepreneur and a filmmaker.

Atlanta has a long and rich heritage of successful business entertainment and civil rights pioneers upon whose shoulders many of us stand today.

One such pioneer is Alonzo Herndon.

Alonzo was born in 1858 into slavery, but ended up creating an enduring legacy.

He was an entrepreneur who owned barbershops, invested in real estate, but is best known for starting Atlanta Life Insurance Company in 1905.

Atlanta life is still operating today.

- I I think he is a very important person that we've overlooked.

You know, we've got to lift up all of our heroes and sheroes - Before explaining Alonzo's accomplishments.

It is important, really important to examine both his background and a brutal environment.

He built his multiple businesses in.

Only through this lens can we truly appreciate the obstacles he overcame to build his legacy - As a young boy was a field hand worked in Social circle, Georgia.

If you go out I 20 going east, you'll go past this about an hour from here.

- I try to tell my students that they should put themselves as much as possible back in the world of the people they're studying.

- Now, let's go.

Let's go to the Sunny South and listen to the songs of the Dockey.

As the cotton crop is gathered, - I - Alonzo's father was the slave master who got the slave woman pregnant.

That was his mother and his father.

- 1858 was an enormously difficult year in American political history.

This was a, a very polarized time.

It was a time when slavery really did divide the country, not just geographically, but also politically.

- We find a crowd gathered at the slave market where with their physiques exposed to view, slaves await their turn upon the auction block before the assembled planters.

- The Constitution has a very strange relationship with slavery.

It is undoubtedly a pro-slavery document.

You can just list all of the things in the constitution that are pro-slavery.

It secures extra representation for slave states through the three-fifths clause.

It protected the slave trade for 20 years.

This is one of the more disturbing parts about the Constitution.

It took a lot of powers away from the federal government that might have impinged on slavery.

So, for instance, the, the, the very structure of federalism guarantees that states can maintain and they're the only ones who can govern domestic institutions.

And when we say domestic institutions, we mean marriage.

We mean employer, employee law and we mean slavery.

So, and, and family law, all of those things are, are left to the states, and the constitution doesn't allow the federal government to do anything, and that's a way of protecting slavery.

- This all happened in a nation that broke free from the crown saying, we hold these truths to be self, self-evident that all men are created equal.

However, there's a caveat saying all men, except for the black man - As a slave, during his formative years, Alonzo endured beatings from his father, the slave owner.

He attributed this to the way his environment tried to break the spirit of blacks upon emancipation, his father forced him and his mother and brother to leave their home in social circle, Georgia.

- For someone like Alonzo who's caught up in a world where all of this is taking place, he's gonna have to be resilient.

He's gonna have to be adaptable and, and figure out where, how do I move forward?

How do I survive day to day in this kind of environment where you don't know what tomorrow might bring, - Alonzo was emancipated.

He was a no longer a slave.

Hooray, hooray.

That is awesome.

That after hundreds of years has been treated as shadow property, that we were no longer treated as such.

However, we had no education, we had no jobs, we had no sources of, of, of, of feeding our families.

So we found ourselves back into sharecropping, which Alonzo and his family also did.

- So that's why he's trying things like making axle grease out of pine nuts while he's learning a barbering trade while he's to sell candy.

He's really trying any kind of entrepreneurial pursuit that he can to get out of sharecropping and farm hand labor, which was the fate of many free people.

- He left home at that very young age with $11 in his pocket.

That's that's all he had.

- Alonzo was frugal and he set aside a portion of his earnings to be able to move from the farm to the city.

He lived in several cities, including Jonesboro, Georgia, where he learned the barbering trade before ultimately settling in Atlanta.

That he was a barber was not surprising.

Since 85% of Negroes in 1890 were employed in agriculture and domestic or personal service, a Barber is a skilled body servant.

We know that Alonzo became a successful entrepreneur, but his initial efforts were due to the need to overcome the hardwell condition.

He found he, his mother and brother in which he accomplished when he moved them to Jonesboro.

Once he became established there, - Well, Alonzo Herndon moved to Atlanta in nine, in 1883, just getting closer - And closer to that bigger and growing city where black people had more opportunities, more strength in numbers, even though things like that 1906 riot could happen, you certainly were less isolated than you would be in a small town in this rising climate of racial hatred and white resentment.

- He really, I think, had a great gift and he was brilliant in his understanding of how one moves from one place to the next.

- It's interesting to see him trying different sorts of business strategies.

So one would be to keep business in the black community, which is the direction he ultimately moves in by offering insurance to African Americans.

But really, he started out trying a variety of different entrepreneurial projects, even kind of, I think distilling Pine tar was one, he learned the barbering trade and another possibility was to not serve a black clientele, but to serve a white clientele.

- He was the entrepreneur par ex loss, - Right - For right in not long after slavery, to have a barbershop with about 20 chairs in it where the, the, the barbers were all black and the customers were all white.

- His barber shops were downtown.

And so he bought land downtown, commercial real estate.

And as you know, it became very lucrative, provided income.

And so he became one of the leading black businessmen in Atlanta at the turn of the century.

- The barbers were dressed in almost formal attire, and there were beautiful chandeliers and maroon carpeting all over, and it was a swanky place, - These three barber shops that began to fund a lot of his other endeavors.

Again, who was thinking that in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, - Alonzo started and operated his businesses in an extraordinarily difficult time, including the potential of violence because of his success, yet without a formal education, he understood timeless entrepreneurial principles that other businessmen didn't understand, but that remain important today, as an entrepreneur, you want - Access to the biggest market possible.

You just don't want access to one market.

And a lot of entrepreneurs think, well, if I can just come out and do something that'll help my community, but you've gotta be able to provide something that that helps the bigger community.

- It was more difficult to be an African American in the late 18 hundreds through the early 19 hundreds.

Factually, infrastructure wasn't in place the same way it is today.

Factually, networking wasn't in place the way it was today in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, we're dealing with, you know, Jim Crowism.

We're dealing with sharecropping, we're dealing with African Americans, still pondering about their 40 acres and a mule as promised by foreign President Lincoln.

We're not talking about African Americans being capitalist, we're not talking about African Americans being owners of industry and employers.

You're talking about a time where you had hate groups, the Ku Klux Klan and other groups that literally engaged in what we call extra legal tactics.

So above and beyond laws that were protecting the humanity of, of people of color and of black people.

You still had these organizations that were marauder type organizations, that were wreaking havoc and mayhem, fear and tear in the hearts and minds of African Americans - As a barber, they could work both sides of the races, but that shut down with Jim Crow.

So what then became another growing market was life insurance.

- And that's right around the time that the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company decided it will not insure African Americans.

So that's another kind of important dimension to to, to why these companies are being founded at this time and why they're so important for African Americans at the time.

Ironically, this created a bit of a, a niche for African American owned insurance companies to step in and offer a service that was increasingly out of reach.

- Atlanta Life Insurance Company was a model of African American entrepreneurial excellence - When people who were poor and black, who didn't have life insurance policies because they were expensive or also they weren't being offered to blacks, they had burial societies and people would put in a small amount of money every week to their burial society so that they could be buried or they could put a loved one down properly.

And so many of those small burial societies became the basis of Atlanta Life.

Mutual insurance companies, - Wheat Street, which was a large Baptist church on Auburn Avenue, had won a mutual aid society and realized it had gotten too big and it was about to fail.

And so he approached Alonzo Herndon about taking it over.

- Insurance was growing in the late 19th century as the country industrialized, people were getting jobs in factories, and those often came with the risk of maiming or death, - Especially in the black community.

People wanted to have a nice funeral, they wanted to go, go home, going in style.

That's a big tradition even today.

And so there was this need for policies.

- The most affordable kind of insurance was known as industrial insurance or industrial premiums, and those would be purchased on a monthly or even a weekly basis and would be very affordable.

Now, you didn't get a lot of benefits for that, but you know, it could cost as little as 5 cents a - Week.

What happened toward the 1890s in the turn of the century is that a lot of these mutual aid societies grew, but they weren't well capitalized.

Herndon was not an insurance person, but he understood a business opportunity when he saw it.

The black population was growing throughout the south.

They had not, you know, started migrating to the north.

And so he saw that this was something that he could really capitalize on.

And there were two other failing mutual aid societies.

And so he agreed to take them over, recapitalize them, and he set up a new entity called Atlanta Mutual Insurance Association in 1905.

He had to deposit $5,000 with the state commission as a guarantor that they would cover all of the policies.

And so he was really one of the few people who had the wherewithal to do that.

- After having success as a barber, a real estate investor, establishing a sterling reputation, one would expect Alonzo to have smooth sailing.

However, his success in business may have been a threat as shortly after forming the initial company that would become Atlanta Life Insurance Company.

Alonzo's violent environment, again, reared its ugly head.

- This riot happened in a climate of rising kind of racial white, white racial resentments toward black people and calls for disenfranchisement.

Also, lynchings were peaking, you know, in the 1890s and into the early 20th century, remained high and Georgia was one of the, the states was one of the highest number of lynchings of any state.

- Just being a black man could, could mean it was, was dangerous to even breathe.

So, so adding success to that, adding education to that, he clearly could have been a target of the time.

- Well, Herndon, the 1906 Atlanta Riot kind of was a sobering moment because his Crystal Palace barbershop was targeted and was damaged during that.

And so black entrepreneurs got the message that they were not welcome in the downtown area, that it, there were actual dangers in conducting this kind of business.

And so it helped kind of shift the Atlanta black population more to the west side at that time, and to refocus them on keeping money in the community instead of trying to appeal to a white clientele.

- Alonzo's genius included his ability to understand trends, to take advantage of business opportunities.

His journey included multiple inflection points, and his personality was such that when the insurance department threatened to shut down Atlanta life and his advisors told him to sell Alonzo instead risked his personal wealth and reputation to save the company.

- The State commission started requiring life insurance companies to increase their reserves, and so they had to go to a hundred thousand dollars, and that was a lot of money back in those days, and that's really when they took off in the twenties.

- The fact that Alonzo Herndon was able to take a company, a number of mutual benefit associations and create this Atlanta Mutual, then Atlanta life, and then to expand it to other cities where they had offices and and agents across the south, I think it's just something absolutely phenomenal for that period of time.

- He saw blacks there having stable jobs, owning homes, and these were people who were gonna be, you know, be in one place and they, he thought they would be a better risk to ensure, and it, it proved out to be quite, quite as shrewd decision - Always taught, taught that this is a black insurance company, we must support our black people and, and we cannot forget who we are.

Being able to show that even back in the early 19 hundreds, we can do for self, we can start business, we can have innovative ideas of how we can live and pour back into our communities.

And so I think his legacy of being a business person, of being a philanthropist, of being a, a one who loves education, I think is extremely valuable to not only this community, but to this city, the state, the region, and the country - One of the responsibilities that successful entrepreneurs must undertake is to be a role model and to give back to the community.

- Herndons involvement with philanthropy had to do with the ways in which his own modest upbringing, he saw the power of economic power and independence, and he saw that he would not be the only recipient of his success, but that he wanted to foster additional economic growth and independence.

They started, no, they - Helped some of the orphanages that was the carry steel pits orphanage, the Leonard Street Orphanage over by Spelman Elaine University.

And so these were things that they were doing as businessmen to help build the community because they benefited as well as more people were able to stand on their feet and, and, and live a, you know, prosperous and successful life.

- I think he made a commitment to seeing Atlanta as a place where he could really make an investment in the people as well as the place - Alonzo Herndon was what they call a race man.

And it's a term that i I truly embrace for a group of men and race women too as well, but a group of men and women who were concerned about the uplift of the people, not just the concern about their own personal wealth.

- The Herndons recognize the importance of supporting our own.

And that's why it was so intriguing for me to see a man born a slave who could appreciate that we have a tendency to forget from which we came.

And what I admired so much about him, that that remained in him, that he had to help his people.

- That was this dual nature of, of the black community then, which was really becoming segregated through the Jim Crow laws, where blacks were really on their own.

And so you had a business, but you also had to render good to the community.

You had to sort of dual proposition.

And so black businessmen there really had to take in and look at the community.

It was not something where you extract profits and you live there, so you had to turn the dollar over and make sure that people benefited.

And Alonzo Herndon was the same way.

- Look at what he did with his money, look at the, what he did, the money that he made off of white folks, you know, and the money that he made from Atlanta life and how he put it back, you know, into the community to have the - Audacity to work for a company founded by a former slave who recognized the importance of supporting these people and that we were proud to say, I could work, I could be around the people at Coca-Cola and Georgia Power.

I said, yeah, that's great.

But I worked for a company that was founded by a former slave.

- You can look at the board of trustees of First Congregational Church and you'll see many Atlanta Life employees.

So he was mentoring the leaders of Atlanta for the next generation and generations, but also he was a, a participant.

He came to church, participated and was involved in many of the aspects of the life of the church.

- This was a man who was a visionary.

And again, visionary leadership is something that's newer, right?

Transformative leadership in society is something that is newer to the conversation and newer to just people understanding what it was.

And I think arguably one could make the case that his life and his leadership was significant because it had not been seen before.

- Family was an important part of Alonzo's legacy.

He groomed his only son, Norris to succeed him and Norris took Atlanta life to new heights.

Really no story about Alonzo and Atlanta Life Insurance Company would be complete without also talking about Norris Herndon.

- He died in 1927.

So he managed the company for 22 years.

And then the story, which I think is a very important story, and it's true for any successful entrepreneur who's gonna succeed me when I step down.

He had a son, Norris Herndon, who was born in nine in 1897, and he groomed ours to become President - Congress.

Herndon picked up the man after his father died and continued to lead this country in a very successful era.

He started the Herndon Foundation, which was designed to maintain the company and continue to give contributions to major black organizations.

When Norris Hernan, I think was a graduate of Harvard, and after he finished Harvard, he came to work for Atlanta life.

And naturally he thought, well, I just finished Harvard and I, my father owns this big company, I can come in as a vice president or whatever.

And he said, Nope, not so fast.

We want you to go in the field.

We want you to be an agent, want you to learn the company so you can know this company before you call yourself a, a vice president and grow in the company.

So I understand that he had to go from the, from the ground up and learn all aspects of the insurance company.

And later on, I remember hearing him said he really appreciated that because how can you run a company when you don't understand all of it?

- He was a recluse, you know, not very social to some extent, but he amassed the fortune.

He provided great leadership for the insurance company for Atlanta.

He supported philanthropic causes in the city, just was a benefactor during the Civil Rights movement.

It is known and documented that he provided funds to support the bailing of, of students and others who had been jailed as a result of that.

And, and really Norris Herndons story - Has not been told, not to mention what they, the contributions they made to United Negro College Fund and what they did to the naacp.

The King Center supported the Civil rights movement.

That was, I mean, as I said earlier, you know how I felt about the discrimination and the disservice that black people receive in this country.

- He was a behind the scene player and he wanted it that way, but the, the movement had to be funded.

And I think that's a whole piece of the story.

The behind the scenes, the people who made the signs, the people who, who packed lunches, the people who prayed, the people who funded, you know, to get these marches and students from one place to, to the other, looking for very little - Recognition.

Anything that happened in the black community, almost anywhere in the world.

He was a contributor.

- A cornerstone of the black community has always been the church.

Both Alonzo's and Norris's legacies also extend to the philanthropy with the various Atlanta churches.

- Just looking back at different areas, our church has been our foundation.

- The reason why Alonzo Herndon was so attracted to education and and to the black church is that the black church is the oldest most independent, it is the longest standing institution in all of black America.

It is where black leaders were developed.

So the black church is always and forever going to be near to dear to anyone near and dear to anyone who calls themselves a leader.

- The, the educational structure, the HBCUs, the Atlanta University Center, the Spelman, the Morehouse, the Clark Atlanta University, the, the, the Morris Brown, the ITC.

We would create the, the intellectuals.

We would create the, the intelligentsia through education, and the church would make sure that our moral compass would remain intact.

- First Congregational Church is the second largest shareholder of Atlanta Life stock to Herin.

And his wife were members of First Congregational Church and his son, Norris Herndon was a very active member.

In fact, in the 1950s and 1960s, Norris Herndon was one of the chief benefactors of many of the improvements that First Congregational Church received.

- Norris Herndon, his son was a member of the church, and he just said, look, go ahead and get it air conditioned.

I'll pay for it.

- In addition to the church, the other institution that has traditionally been important to the black community has been the educational system.

Both Alonzo and Norris were starch supporters of historically black colleges and universities.

The HBCUs, this was likely influenced by a Lonzo's first wife and Norris's mother, Adrienne who was a professor at Atlanta University.

- Really, they were very different.

He was not well educated and she was very well educated, but he had a business acumen unlike any, you know, and she was very cultured and very refined.

So it, it's a amazing union of two unlikely people.

- And she was with the Department of Drama, and Adrienne would put on Shakespeare plays and all sorts of cultural plays for not just her family, but for the Atlanta University community.

- Adrienne had studied, you know, in Boston and, you know, studied the dramatics and, and, and was a literary genius.

- Education had always been a gateway for African Americans.

It had been, if you will, the train that took you from poverty to significance.

And so when you wed those two together, what you're gonna find throughout the history of black people from slavery through freedom, is that the black church is the largest producer of African American leaders in the nation.

And these leaders are educated leaders.

Right?

- I have two predicates, two, two strong points of foundation in my life.

One is the church and the other's education.

I had mom who made sure that we went to church, we stayed in church, we served the church, and I had dad who said, education, education, education.

- A lot of our HBCU, the Spelman and the Morehouse of the world, they were founded through the black church, right?

When we look at Morris Brown College, it was founded through the a ME church.

And so this marriage between the black church and higher education is, is just a natural one that I think Herndon, from what I know about him, would've naturally been drawn to, to support, contribute to, and, and, and have significant impact in.

- He was very instrumental, not with just Morris Brown, but with all of the historically black colleges, having been the first black millionaire in the city of Atlanta, you know, offering jobs to the community, hiring folks, you know, he had barbershops, he had other businesses.

He was tied directly to Morris Brown and all of the other au center schools.

- So he was a man who was not highly educated, but yet he supported education because he understood its value.

And the fact that the black middle class was being created at the time, for the first time in history, a black middle class was being created and it was being created right here at Atlanta University right across the street from where he resided in the same neighborhood where he worked.

- Other legacy, I believe, for the Herndons and Atlanta life is that it helped to create what I think would become this black middle class in Atlanta, which later would become the quote unquote the black Mecca - As a businessman, he needed a community that could come in and, and work for him and be a, a central focus in the community without education, you know, you can't have that.

And so he valued the HBCUs in this city.

He valued education.

And so I, with us being again, neighbors, I think that he really, really saw a need of partnering with all of the black colleges in, in the Atlanta University Center.

- Norris Herndon supported the Atlanta University Center, and especially Morris Brown College, which was of course adjacent.

Now, Morris Brown was dear to him because it was the old Atlanta University.

It was the school where he attended.

It was a school where his mother taught with WEB Du Bois.

- Morson was started in eighteen eighty one, a hundred forty years ago, the only institution in the state of Georgia founded by black people, primarily owned and operated by black people.

And so we have a huge legacy here at Morris Brown College.

- Practically whatever the school needed, Norris Herndon provided the, the stone wall that encompasses the campus was provided by Norris Herndon.

When it was decided that there was going to be a stadium built in the area, Norris Herndon and the Atlanta Life supported it, provided the funds, and built one of the largest stadiums of any black college in the country - At that time.

He was probably the largest contributor to historically black colleges of that period.

- It was not, it's not, it wasn't even a question when I would get a request from some of the colleges, I looked at my budget and sometime I had to expand my budget, but I would follow the request because I knew the importance of it and how it was needed and the kind of support that we were given was just phenomenal.

- Adrienne influenced Alonzo and his legacy in many ways.

In addition to supporting the HBCUs, Adrian probably spread Alonzo to his civic involvement with W.E.B.

Du Bois and the meeting that was a forerunner to the naacp.

- Alonzo Herndon met Dr. William Edward Burkhart Du Bois on the campus of Atlanta University.

When Dr. Du Bois came to Atlanta with his wife, they became instant friends with the Herndons because Mrs. Herndon was teaching at Atlanta University, and Dr. Du Bois was teaching.

He had an office, I think up on the third floor in Stone Hall, and there were very few African Americans.

- Du Bois really became one of the militants, along with others like Ben Trotter and Ider Wells, and they were pushing for more protections for blacks.

- The Agri conference that pulled black intellectuals from all over the world was financed actually by ba, a black barbershop in Atlanta.

Wow.

- And many of the people who went there, Herdon did initially were business people who realized that more needed to be done.

These segregated Jim Crow laws were really constricting the black community.

And so the Niagara Conference, which was up just, you know, the border between Niagara and Canada, really grew into the naacp and then Du Bois really went and became the manager of their magazine.

The crisis - Of the many lasting legacies of the Herndons, the Herndon home, the house Alonzo built for Adrienne is now at historical site that many have taken toys into learn about the Herndons.

- There was directly across the street from what was there in Atlanta University, the most beautiful brow within the entire city of Atlanta.

This, this brow on this hill overlooking the city.

That's where Alonzo Herndon built his mansion right across the street from Atlanta University.

Why?

Because his, his wife loved Atlanta University.

She was a graduate of Atlanta University - As a student my sophomore year at Morris Brown.

I had heard about the Herndon home, had passed by many times and was intrigued by this huge mansion that set a top of the hill near the campus, and of course near the Vine city community.

The second Mrs. Herndon, Jesse Gillespie Herndon, whom Alonzo Franklin Herndon married after Mrs.

The first Mrs. Herndons death, she came from Chicago.

She too was sort of a high culture society, but in a different way than than Adrienne.

A little bit more, more worldly if, if you will, and a little bit more street smart.

She liked to travel, you know, so they traveled a whole lot, you know, by ships.

And they went to Paris, France, and, and they visited Egypt and other places.

And, and Norris had, from my recollection, a fairly good relationship with his, his stepmother - Folks come to the museum and they wanna peek over here at Morris Brown to see what's going on.

They've heard so much about our institution as well.

So, you know, we are connected at the hip being right here in, in the city.

- One day after class, I decided to go over to the Herndon home just to peek in, you know, so I started peeking into the windows, you know, I went around to the side, went to the front.

There was no signage on the front door at the time.

And I remember peeking in and somebody peeked back out at me and it scared me to death.

And she knocked on the window and she pointed to come to the door.

So I went to the front door, and it was Mrs. Marian Porter.

Mrs. Porter had been the housekeeper for Mr. Norris Herndon for many years.

And she said, baby, you don't have to peek in, just ring the doorbell.

I stepped in just like a, a kid in a candy shop or a bright eye kid on Christmas day.

And I stepped in and I looked around and I looked up at the ceiling and saw these chandeliers, and I looked around and saw this beveled glass.

I didn't know what beveled glass was.

I came to learn that that was beveled glass and the, the music room pink, beautiful with the, the piano.

- I took great pride in meeting with people to tell them about Atlanta life.

Young people would come to Atlanta life on a tour.

They wanted to hear the history of the hernias, they wanted to hear the history of Atlanta life.

And that was at least two or three times a week.

Three or 400 kids would come, I call 'em kids.

College students would come in full of our auditorium and I'd stand there and tell the whole history of Atlanta life.

And many times I received an abundance amount of mail saying how inspiring it was, how encouraging that it was.

There were parents who brought their children and said, oh my God, that was so encouraging.

What a joy.

- To work at the Herndon home, to give tours, to invite people in, to tell the story about Alonzo Franklin Herndon, and to tell the story about Adrienne McNeil, Herndon and Norris, and that entire family.

And people would come in and amazement.

I mean, we had buses after buses and family reunions, and, and my job was to make the Herndon story come alive.

You know, in each room.

People were just marvel.

They were amazed that an African American man was able to accomplish the wealth that he did, primarily initially through barbering, investing in these mutual organizations, these mutual benefit organizations, and then establishing the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, but never forgetting his roots.

His, his African-American roots his ancestry.

And there are very few people like Alonzo Herndon that we can talk about in the city of Atlanta.

- Alonzo Herndons impact on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship, not just in Atlanta, but nationally, is the fact that he's a great success story.

He put Atlanta entrepreneurs or black businessmen on the map.

And so he begins what is a very, very long road of black businessmen and women here in Atlanta.

But if you think about Alonzo Herndon or Madam CJ Walker, these great innovators that turned an innovation into a successful business, that became a model of possibility for so many other business people coming along.

A - Man who had limited opportunities, but was determined.

That kind of determination that makes you say, if he could do it during those days, certainly I should be able to do something now.

So it helps all of us.

You know, when you grow as a brother and I see you grow and have children and expand them and educate them, helps me, helps all of us, helps all people, and that's what we were about.

- Thanks.

A successful entrepreneur's legacy is not limited to venture success.

His or her impact may include non venture involvement with family, community, as well as educational, civic, and philanthropic organizations.

The truth test of a legacy is whether one's actions have an impact beyond one's lifetime at his death.

Alonzo Herndon owned 91% of Atlanta life insurance company, three barbershops with 50 chairs, real estate ownership in a cemetery and a loan company.

Perhaps the greatest gift he left us with was the hope that we can accomplish the improbable.

Alonzo was a pioneer upon whose shoulders many of us are proud to stand on today.