A boy is born Black in hard-times Georgia in 1930. One of eight children, his father has a fourth-grade education, the family is poor and the boy has a speech impediment that will be with him his entire life. Aspiring to be like the entrepreneurs whose small “Negro” businesses dot Atlanta’s then-thriving Auburn Avenue, he opens a shoeshine stand outside his family’s home.
From that patch of ground, Herman J. Russell went on to become a major construction and real-estate developer, and one of America’s wealthiest and most successful Black business owners. His H.J. Russell and Co. built the Atlanta headquarters of the Coca-Cola Co. and of Georgia Pacific; Mercedes Benz Stadium, home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons; and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington.
Continue reading Bloomberg here, courtesy of Brett Pulley.