Predecessor | The Atlanta Benevolent and Protective Association |
---|---|
Founded | 1922 as Atlanta Life, 1905 as Atlanta Mutual, |
Founder | Alonzo Herndon |
Website | https://atlantalife.com/ |
The Atlanta Life Financial Group was founded by Alonzo Herndon in Atlanta, Georgia. Born into slavery, he started in Atlanta as a young barber, eventually owning three shops. He became Atlanta's richest African American and a highly successful businessman. For many years, the life insurance company was one of the most prominent African-American businesses in the United States. The demolished public housing project Herndon Homes was named for Herndon.
In 1905 Herndon purchased The Atlanta Benevolent and Protective Association (later called Atlanta Mutual) for $140, depositing $5000 (equivalent to $163,000in 2022) with the state under their requirement for a kind of guarantee fund. In 1922 this was renamed the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. [1] Herndon expanded the company with branches in numerous other Southern states.
The Atlanta Life Insurance Company building (built 1920) at 148 Auburn Avenue, near the corner of Piedmont Avenue, is part of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park. [2]
In 1905, a slave-born barber Alonzo Franklin Herndon founded Atlanta Life Insurance Company. Herndon bought a small self-help association known as the Atlanta Benevolent and Protective Association for $140, which Reverend Peter Bryant of Wheat Street Baptist Church had established the year before. Herndon then consolidated his investments into the Atlanta Mutual Insurance Association, adding two other firms, the Royal Mutual Insurance Company, and the National Laborer's Protective Union. [3]
In 2008, William A. Clement, Jr. was appointed as President & CEO of the Atlanta Life Financial Group, Inc., and served for three years in that capacity. He was also an outside director of ALFG in 1992, and in 2001. [4]
In 2014, Atlanta Life Financial Group's Board of Directors appointed Roosevelt Giles as Chairman and William J. Stanley III, as Vice Chairman. [5]
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park covers about 35 acres (0.14 km2) and includes several sites in Atlanta, Georgia related to the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Within the park is his boyhood home, and Ebenezer Baptist Church — the church where King was baptized and both he and his father, Martin Luther King Sr., were pastors — as well as, the grave site of King, Jr., and his wife, civil rights activist Coretta Scott King.
Lincoln National Corporation is a Fortune 200 American holding company, which operates multiple insurance and investment management businesses through subsidiary companies. Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for LNC and its subsidiary companies.
The Sweet Auburn Historic District is a historic African-American neighborhood along and surrounding Auburn Avenue, east of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The name Sweet Auburn was coined by John Wesley Dobbs, referring to the "richest Negro street in the world," one of the largest concentrations of African-American businesses in the United States.
Charles Clinton Spaulding was an American business leader. For close to thirty years, he presided over North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, which became America's largest black-owned business, with assets of over 40 million US$ at his death.
Protective Life Corporation is a financial service holding company in Birmingham, Alabama. The company's primary subsidiary, Protective Life Insurance Company, was established in 1907 and now markets its products and services in all 50 states. As of December 31, 2022, the corporation had more than 3,700 employees, annual revenues of $6.6 billion and assets of $113.2 billion. In addition to Protective Life Insurance Company, Protective Life Corporation's subsidiaries include West Coast Life Insurance Company, MONY Life Insurance Company, Protective Life And Annuity Insurance Company, Concourse Financial Group, and Protective Property and Casualty Insurance Company.
The Mutual of America Financial Group, also referred to as Mutual of America, is a Fortune 1000 mutual company based in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1945, it was ranked as the tenth-largest retirement provider in the United States on the Forbes 500 list.
Alonzo Franklin Herndon was an American entrepreneur and businessman in Atlanta, Georgia. Born into slavery, he became one of the first American millionaires in the United States, first achieving success by owning and operating three large barber shops in the city that served prominent white men. In 1905 he became the founder and president of what he built to be one of the United States' most well-known and successful American businesses, the Atlanta Family Life Insurance Company.
The Herndon Home is a historic house museum and National Historic Landmark at 587 University Place NW, in Atlanta, Georgia. An elegant Classical Revival mansion with Beaux Arts influences, it was the home of Alonzo Franklin Herndon (1858-1927), a rags-to-riches success story who was born into slavery, but went on to become Atlanta's first black millionaire as founder and head of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. The house was designed by his wife Adrienne, and was almost entirely built with African-American labor. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2000, and had previously been declared a "landmark building exterior" by the city of Atlanta in 1989.
Adrienne Elizabeth McNeil Herndon (1869-1910) was an actress, professor, and activist in Atlanta, Georgia. While admittedly an African American to friends and colleagues, she performed with the stage name Anne Du Bignon. She was one of the first African American faculty at Atlanta University, where she met W. E. B. Du Bois and subsequently worked with him. Herndon and Alonzo Herndon were an influential couple.
The Herndon Building was a contributing property in the Sweet Auburn Historic District of Atlanta, Georgia, located across Auburn Avenue from the Odd Fellows Building and Auditorium.
Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, was once the largest black-owned insurance company in the western United States, founded by William Nickerson Jr. with the assistance of Norman Oliver Houston and George Allen Beavers Jr.
Jesse Hill Jr. was an African American civil rights activist. He was active in the civic and business communities of the city for more than five decades. Hill was president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, from 1973 to 1992, and was the first African American to be elected president of a chamber of commerce in a major city. During Hill's presidency of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company it became the largest black-owned life insurance company in the nation. He was a member of the board of directors for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Norman O. Houston was an American businessman and president of Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, which at one time was the largest black-owned business west of the Mississippi.
George A. Beavers Jr. was the board chairman of Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, which at one time was the largest black-owned business west of the Mississippi.
First Congregational Church is a United Church of Christ church located in downtown Atlanta at the corner of Courtland Street and John Wesley Dobbs Avenue. It is notable for being the favored church of the city's black elite including Alonzo Herndon and Andrew Young, for its famous minister Henry H. Proctor, and for President Taft having visited in 1898.
Ivenue Love-Stanley,, , is an American architect. She co-founded Stanley, Love-Stanley P.C., an Atlanta-based architecture and design firm. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Architecture, and in 1983 she became the first African-American woman licensed architect in the Southeast. Love-Stanley's projects include the Aquatic Center for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, the Lyke House Catholic Student Center at the Atlanta University Center, the Southwest YMCA and St. Paul's Episcopal Church, the Auburn Market in Sweet Auburn and the National Black Arts Festival headquarters.
The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York was the oldest continuous writer of insurance policies in the United States. Incorporated in 1842, it was headquartered at 1740 Broadway, before becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA Financial, Inc. in 2004.
South-View Cemetery is a historic African-American-founded cemetery located approximately 15 minutes from downtown Atlanta, Georgia. An active operational cemetery on over 100 acres of land, it is the oldest African-American cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia and the oldest African-American “non eleemosynary” corporation in the country. Founded in 1886, it has since served as the burial place for many leaders in the civil rights movement including Julian Bond and John Lewis. Martin Luther King Jr. was originally buried here but was later moved to the King National Historic Park in Atlanta.
Norris Bumstead Herndon was a prominent African-American businessman, Harvard Business School MBA graduate, philanthropist, member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and second President of the historic African-American-owned Atlanta Life Insurance Company.