Alonzo Franklin Herndon
1858-1927
First black millionaire and founder of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company.
Alonzo Herndon, was Atlanta’s first black millionaire and founder of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company.
He was born a slave in 1858 near the town of Social Circle in Walton County, Georgia. After the Civil War in 1888, he relocated to Atlanta. In Atlanta, he studied how to be a barber. He accomplished, polished the training of Barbering, and owned and managed a string of barbershops in downtown Atlanta. The Crystal Palace he owned at 66 Peachtree Street was considered to be the most elegant barber shop in the country with marble floors and chandeliers. He learned the business of how to invest his income and began his real estate power of purchasing, Herndon became the largest black property owner in Atlanta by 1900.
In 1905 Alonzo, Adrienne, and Norris Herndon attended the Niagara Movement conference which eventually made them one of their financial supporter.
In 1905, Herndon founded the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, located in the Sweet Auburn Historic District. It is still the largest black-owned stockholder insurance company in America. Herndon became Atlanta’s first black millionaire due to his knowledge and passion for success at the same time fighting for civil rights.
Adrienne McNeil Herndon, Alonzo’s first wife was a well-trained actress, vocalist, and teacher of elocution at Atlanta University. Adrienne designed the Herndon Home a two-story, 15-room Beaux Arts mansion built by local black craftsmen. 1910 just three months after the home was completed Adrienne died of Addison’s disease. The couple had one son, Norris Bumstead Herndon.
In 1912 Alonzo married his second wife Jessie Gillespie Herndon. Jessie was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1871 to a prominent Black family that was among the founders of the St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church. Her father, Ezekiel Gillespie, successfully sued the Wisconsin board of Elections, securing Black voting rights in that state.
After Alonzo’s death in 1927, Norris assumed the presidency of Atlanta Life Insurance, with Jessie as vice president. During this period the company experienced its greatest growth.
The family’s rise from slavery to leadership of the nation’s African-American business community was a phenomenal achievement. They contributed to the civil rights movement, to the education, social, and cultural development of Atlanta.
The Herndon Home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2000 and is owned and operated by the Alonzo F. and Norris B. Herndon Foundation.