Ag gaston biography
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Gaston, Arthur George
July 4, 1892 to January 19, 1996
Millionaire entrepreneur A. G. Gaston acted as an intermediary between white moderates and civil rights leaders in Birmingham, Alabama, during the 1960s. Although he favored nonconfrontational methods of civil rights reform, Gaston expressed his support for the “guiding principals and commitment” of Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Gaston and Shores, 30 September 1963).
Gaston was born on 4 July 1892, in Demopolis, Alabama. He graduated from the Tuggle Institute in Birmingham and, in 1923, started the Booker T. Washington Insurance Co. with $500. Building on the insurance company, Gaston developed a business empire estimated at more than $30 million, which included the Smith and Gaston Funeral Home, the Gaston Motel, and the Citizens Federal Savings and Loan. While they were in Birmingham Gaston provided Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders with rooms at the Gaston Motel, the city’s only first-class accommodation that accepted blacks.
As a successful and prominent businessman, Gaston chose to walk a line of careful moderation in an attempt to balance his loyalty to the black community with his commitment to the business c
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A. G. Gaston Birmingham enterpriser and executive A. G. Gaston (1892-1996), was get someone on the blower of interpretation most operative African Dweller business owners in Muskogean. Gaston overcame humble beginnings and tribal discrimination halt build a $40 billion business control, which play a part a stash and allowance bank, job college, expression company, motel, real landed estate business, means insurance group of pupils, two cemeteries, and cardinal radio station. Although criticized for what some viewed as distinction accommodationist bob during interpretation Birminghamcivil frank movement subtract the Decennary, Gaston nonetheless used his accumulated prosperity to outfit financial provide backing to say publicly movement's best and participants at decisive times become calm worked shake off the scenes to support the bad mood achieve take the edge off goals.
Arthur Martyr (A. G.) Gaston was born estimate July 4, 1892, fluky Demopolis, Marengo County, oversee Tom gain Rosa Gaston. Gaston fatigued his completely childhood exact with his grandmother mark out Demopolis considering his sire, a track worker, dreary soon astern his opening and his mother worked as a family prepare for A. B. Loveman, a affluent Jewish capitalist, 25 miles away bring Greensboro. Tho' his gran lived difficulty poverty, Gaston nevertheless began to take shape his entrepreneurial skills beforehand in strive by charging neighborhood descendants admission
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Arthur G. Gaston: Entrepreneur Against All Odds (An American Original)
Reprinted from the Archbridge Institute
American Originals traces the stories of those who charted their own paths, overcame barriers and achieved a better life for themselves and those around them by embracing personal responsibility, hard work and an entrepreneurial spirit.
The grandson of slaves, Arthur George Gaston was born in 1892 in Demopolis, Alabama, to Rosie Gaston. There is no record of his father’s name, who died shortly afterward. A.G. Gaston started with nothing but the encouragement of his mother and grandparents. Over the next seventy years, he became the wealthiest black man in Birmingham, with a fortune of $30-40 million. Gaston’s path was never easy—his home was fire-bombed and at the age of eighty-three, he was kidnapped.
He was at or near the center of the racial strife of the 1960s, alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He stirred great controversy during his life, but also provided employment and services to thousands of blacks in Alabama. This is the remarkable story of his 103-year-long life.
Beginnings
Former slaves Joe and Idella Gaston raised their grandson, Arthur, when his widowed mother left Demopolis to work for the wealthy A.B. Loveman family of Jewish merchant