Description
The grandson of enslaved people who built an empire in the Jim Crow South. Arthur George Gaston (1892–1996) was one of the most remarkable self-made businessmen in American history. In Black Titan, his niece Carol Jenkins and grandniece Elizabeth Gardner Hines tell his story for the first time, drawing on family memory and painstaking research.
Born in rural Alabama, Gaston arrived in Birmingham with little more than ambition and an iron work ethic—and built a business empire from the ground up: the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company, a savings bank, a construction company, a radio station, and the A.G. Gaston Motel, the Birmingham headquarters of the civil rights movement, where Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues planned the campaigns that changed America.
Published in 2004, this acclaimed biography unfolds Gaston’s success against the backdrop of a century of racial hatred and bigotry, revealing how he navigated—and quietly funded—the struggle for freedom. Inspiring reading for entrepreneurs, history lovers, and anyone interested in Black American achievement.
The Black American millionaire who built an empire in the Jim Crow South
Arthur George Gaston (1892–1996) was the grandson of enslaved people and one of the most remarkable self-made businessmen in American history. In Black Titan, his niece Carol Jenkins and grandniece Elizabeth Gardner Hines tell his story for the first time, drawing on family memory and painstaking research.
Born in rural Alabama, Gaston arrived in Birmingham with little more than ambition and an iron work ethic. He built a business empire from the ground up: the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company, a savings bank, a construction company, a radio station, and the A.G. Gaston Motel — the Birmingham headquarters of the civil rights movement, where Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues planned the campaigns that changed America.
Published in 2004, this acclaimed biography unfolds Gaston’s success against the backdrop of a century of racial hatred and bigotry, revealing how he navigated — and quietly funded — the struggle for freedom while amassing wealth that bore comparison to the great industrialists of his era.
Why this biography stands out
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- A deeply personal account written by Gaston’s own family members.
- A fresh lens on the civil rights movement, seen through the eyes of its banker.
- Inspiring reading for entrepreneurs, history lovers, and anyone interested in Black American achievement.
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An essential portrait of a titan who proved that genius and determination recognize no color line.
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