Friday, October 9, 2009

by Martin J. Holland

Herndon first made his money through being a barber, and slowly, through hard work, started to own a series of barbershops throughout the southeast. His most famous location was in downtown Atlanta on Peachtree, where he employed some twenty-six African American barbers to cut the hair of his powerful white clientele. The wealth that he earned through his establishment went back into the black community, and assisted him in amassing prime real estate locations in the south, and also providing the capital necessary to start Atlanta Life insurance. e educational institutions that were established to teach the young minds of the rising black middle class. Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, and Morehouse College were founded to address the necessity of providing excellent post secondary education to African Americans, so that those students would become the next generation of community, political and business leaders. Remember at the time of their respective founding, no black students were allowed to attend post secondary educational institutions in the south. We then walked the grounds of Tuskegee University, including the George Washington Carver Museum. The history of the University is fascinating. Lewis Adams, who recognized that while slavery had been abolished by the emancipation proclamation acts of 1862 and 1863, noted that freed slaves often possessed little formal education or marketabl e skills to support themselves or their families. Adam’s strong lobbying of the State of Alabama’s democratic party resulted in the establishment of the Institute in 1881, and he hired the young Booker T. Washington to serve as the first president of the school. The school proved to be a critical destination for many African Americans, as the school not only provided formal education, but also real world, “hands on” experience. Many of the buildings on the grounds were designed by the first African American architect in the United Sta

Source: Friday, October 9, 2009