Samuel B. Fuller
Encyclopedia
S. B. Fuller (June 4, 1905, Monroe, Louisiana
—- October 24, 1988, Blue Island, Illinois
) was an American
entrepreneur
. He was founder and president of the Fuller Products Company, publisher of the New York Age
and Pittsburgh Courier
, head of the South Side Chicago
NAACP, president of the National Negro Business League
, and a prominent black Republican
.
S.B. Fuller's life was an illustration of business success and self-help. His company gave inspiration and training to countless aspiring entrepreneurs and future leaders, including John H. Johnson
of Johnson Publishing, George Ellis Johnson
founder of Johnson Products, and Dr. T.R.M. Howard.
) was born into rural poverty to a sharecropper family in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana
in 1905. The family's poverty was such that he had to drop out of school in sixth grade
. At nine he was selling products door-to-door and gaining experience as an entrepreneur. At fifteen his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee
. Two years later his mother would pass away leaving seven children to fend for themselves.
After going to Chicago in 1928, Fuller worked in a wide range of menial jobs, eventually rising to become manager of a coal yard. Subsequent to his employment in the coal yard, he gained employment as an insurance representative for Commonwealth Burial Association, an African-American firm. Although he had a secure job during the depression, he nevertheless struck out on his own preferring “freedom” to “security.”
The substantial number of African American families who moved to the South side of Chicago during the Great Migration
became the customer base from which Fuller Products would see tremendous expansion. The additional growth was sufficient for the company to open its own factory in 1939. In 1947, Fuller purchased Boyer to prevent its bankruptcy, keeping his ownership a secret. The company began to manufacture and sell a diverse line of commodities from deodorant and hair care to hosiery and men’s suits. Fuller also purchased several newspapers including the New York Age and the Pittsburgh Courier. Additionally, he owned the South Center Department Store and the Regal Theater
in Chicago.
although he always had an independent streak. He promoted civil rights and briefly headed the Chicago South Side NAACP. Along with Birmingham
businessman, A.G. Gaston, he tried to organize a cooperative effort to purchase the segregated bus company during the Montgomery Bus Boycott
. He told Martin Luther King Jr., “The bus company is losing money and willing to sell. We should buy it.” King was skeptical of the idea, and not enough blacks came forward to raise the money.
Despite his belief in civil rights, Fuller’s emphasis was always on the need for blacks to go into business. In 1958, he blasted the federal government for undermining free enterprise and fostering socialism
. He feared that it was “doing the same thing today as was done in the days of Caesar
--destroying incentive and initiative.” He argued that wherever “there is capitalism
there is freedom.”
Fuller was a good friend and associate of Dr. T.R.M. Howard from Mississippi
and later Chicago. Howard was a wealthy black entrepreneur and a prominent civil rights leader and mentor to Medgar Evers
. Fuller and Howard had probably met because of their mutual involvement in the National Negro Business League
. Fuller was president of the organization for several terms in the 1940s and 1950s. He hired Howard to be medical director of Fuller Products and supported his Republican campaign for Congress in 1958.
Despite his opinion, the White Citizens Councils organized a boycott of Fuller's Nadal products line during the 1950s, when they learned an African American owned the company. This would be the beginning of a turn of fortune for Fuller's business interests that would affect his activities throughout the 1960s.
In 1963 Fuller was the first African American inducted into the National Association of Manufacturers
. During his acceptance speech he stated that "a lack of understanding of the capitalist system and not racial barriers was keeping blacks from making progress." In an interview that same year with U.S. News and World Report he said, "Negroes are not discriminated against because of the color of their skin. They are discriminated against because they have not anything to offer that people want to buy." Afterwards his company suffered severe setbacks as many of his comments were reported out of context. Major national black leaders reacted angrily and called for a boycott of Fuller Products.
In 1968, Fuller sold unregistered promissory notes in interstate commerce for which he was charged with violating the Federal Securities Act. After pleading guilty, being placed on five years' probation, and ordered to repay creditors $1.6 million, Fuller Products entered bankruptcy in 1971. Although the company reorganized, reported profits of $300,000 in 1972, and the cosmetics portion of the old company was rebuilt, it never returned to the firm's previous levels of size or profitability.
In 1976, Fuller, as a result of health problems, asked his top distributor, Joe Louis Dudley, Sr., to move to Chicago and become President of the Fuller Products Company. Dudley ran both Fuller Products Company and Dudley Products Company from 1976 until 1984. In 1984, Fuller Products Company was purchased by Dudley.
Fuller was eighty-three years of age when he died at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois
from kidney failure.
Monroe, Louisiana
Monroe is a city in and the parish seat of Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 53,107, making it the eighth largest city in Louisiana. A July 1, 2007, United States Census Bureau estimate placed the population at 51,208, but 51,636...
—- October 24, 1988, Blue Island, Illinois
Blue Island, Illinois
Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois. The population was 22,556 at the 2010 census. Blue Island was established in the 1830s as a way station for settlers traveling on the Vincennes Trace, and the settlement prospered because it was conveniently situated a day's journey outside of Chicago...
) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
. He was founder and president of the Fuller Products Company, publisher of the New York Age
The New York Globe
The New York Globe was a daily New York City newspaper published from 1904 to 1923, when it was bought and merged into the New York Sun.-History:...
and Pittsburgh Courier
Pittsburgh Courier
The Pittsburgh Courier was an American newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was published from 1907 to 1965. Once the country's most widely circulated Black newspaper, the legacy and influence of the Pittsburgh Courier is unparalleled.A pillar of the Black Press, it rose...
, head of the South Side Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
NAACP, president of the National Negro Business League
National Negro Business League
The National Negro Business League was an American organization founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900 by Booker T. Washington, with the support of Andrew Carnegie...
, and a prominent black Republican
Black conservatism
Black conservatism is a political and social movement rooted in communities of African descent that aligns largely with the conservative movement around the world. It often emphasizes patriotism, independence and self-sufficiency, free enterprise, and strong cultural conservatism within the context...
.
S.B. Fuller's life was an illustration of business success and self-help. His company gave inspiration and training to countless aspiring entrepreneurs and future leaders, including John H. Johnson
John H. Johnson
John Harold Johnson was an American businessman and publisher. He was the founder of the Johnson Publishing Company. In 1982 he became the first African-American to appear on the Forbes 400.ÀčĐċĎ- Biography :...
of Johnson Publishing, George Ellis Johnson
George E. Johnson, Sr.
George Ellis Johnson, Sr. is an African American entrepreneur and the founder of Johnson Products Company, an international cosmetics empire headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.-Early life:...
founder of Johnson Products, and Dr. T.R.M. Howard.
Early life
Fuller (no relation to Alfred C. Fuller, founder of the Fuller Brush CompanyFuller Brush Company
The Fuller Brush Company sells branded and private label products for personal care as well as commercial and household cleaning; it is a subsidiary of CPAC Inc., which since 2007 has been owned by the private equity group Buckingham Capital Partners. Fuller Brush was founded in 1906, by Alfred...
) was born into rural poverty to a sharecropper family in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana
Ouachita Parish, Louisiana
-National protected areas:* Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge* D'Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge -Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 147,250 people, 55,216 households, and 38,319 families residing in the parish. The population density was 241 people per square mile...
in 1905. The family's poverty was such that he had to drop out of school in sixth grade
Sixth grade
Sixth grade is a year of education in the United States and some other nations. The sixth grade is the sixth school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 11 – 12 years old...
. At nine he was selling products door-to-door and gaining experience as an entrepreneur. At fifteen his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
. Two years later his mother would pass away leaving seven children to fend for themselves.
After going to Chicago in 1928, Fuller worked in a wide range of menial jobs, eventually rising to become manager of a coal yard. Subsequent to his employment in the coal yard, he gained employment as an insurance representative for Commonwealth Burial Association, an African-American firm. Although he had a secure job during the depression, he nevertheless struck out on his own preferring “freedom” to “security.”
Entrepreneurship
His career as an entrepreneur started after he borrowed twenty-five dollars using his car as collateral. Along with his friend Lestine Thornton (who later became his wife), he invested in a load of soap from Boyer International Laboratories, manufacturer of Jean Nadal Cosmetics and HA Hair Arranger. His success selling soap door-to-door inspired him to invest another $1000. He incorporated Fuller Products in 1929. In four years he would be promoted to a manager at Commonwealth while continuing to grow his own company to a line of 30 products and hiring additional door-to-door salespeople.The substantial number of African American families who moved to the South side of Chicago during the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
became the customer base from which Fuller Products would see tremendous expansion. The additional growth was sufficient for the company to open its own factory in 1939. In 1947, Fuller purchased Boyer to prevent its bankruptcy, keeping his ownership a secret. The company began to manufacture and sell a diverse line of commodities from deodorant and hair care to hosiery and men’s suits. Fuller also purchased several newspapers including the New York Age and the Pittsburgh Courier. Additionally, he owned the South Center Department Store and the Regal Theater
Regal Theater, South Side (Chicago)
The Regal Theater, located in the heart of Bronzeville, was an important night club and music venue in Chicago.Part of the Balaban and Katz chain, the lavishly decorated venue, with plush carpeting and velvet drapes featured some of the most celebrated black entertainers in America.The Regal also...
in Chicago.
Politics
Fuller was a leading black RepublicanRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
although he always had an independent streak. He promoted civil rights and briefly headed the Chicago South Side NAACP. Along with Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
businessman, A.G. Gaston, he tried to organize a cooperative effort to purchase the segregated bus company during the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign that started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit system. Many important figures in the civil rights movement were involved in the boycott,...
. He told Martin Luther King Jr., “The bus company is losing money and willing to sell. We should buy it.” King was skeptical of the idea, and not enough blacks came forward to raise the money.
Despite his belief in civil rights, Fuller’s emphasis was always on the need for blacks to go into business. In 1958, he blasted the federal government for undermining free enterprise and fostering socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. He feared that it was “doing the same thing today as was done in the days of Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
--destroying incentive and initiative.” He argued that wherever “there is capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
there is freedom.”
Fuller was a good friend and associate of Dr. T.R.M. Howard from Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
and later Chicago. Howard was a wealthy black entrepreneur and a prominent civil rights leader and mentor to Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
. Fuller and Howard had probably met because of their mutual involvement in the National Negro Business League
National Negro Business League
The National Negro Business League was an American organization founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900 by Booker T. Washington, with the support of Andrew Carnegie...
. Fuller was president of the organization for several terms in the 1940s and 1950s. He hired Howard to be medical director of Fuller Products and supported his Republican campaign for Congress in 1958.
Change of fortune
During the 1950s, Fuller was probably the richest African American man in the United States. His cosmetics company had $18 million in sales and a sales force of five thousand (one third of them white). It gave training to many future entrepreneurs and other leaders. “It doesn’t make any difference,” he declared, “about the color of an individual’s skin. No one cares whether a cow is black, red, yellow, or brown. They want to know how much milk it can produce.”Despite his opinion, the White Citizens Councils organized a boycott of Fuller's Nadal products line during the 1950s, when they learned an African American owned the company. This would be the beginning of a turn of fortune for Fuller's business interests that would affect his activities throughout the 1960s.
In 1963 Fuller was the first African American inducted into the National Association of Manufacturers
National Association of Manufacturers
The National Association of Manufacturers is an advocacy group headquartered in Washington, D.C. with 10 additional offices across the country...
. During his acceptance speech he stated that "a lack of understanding of the capitalist system and not racial barriers was keeping blacks from making progress." In an interview that same year with U.S. News and World Report he said, "Negroes are not discriminated against because of the color of their skin. They are discriminated against because they have not anything to offer that people want to buy." Afterwards his company suffered severe setbacks as many of his comments were reported out of context. Major national black leaders reacted angrily and called for a boycott of Fuller Products.
In 1968, Fuller sold unregistered promissory notes in interstate commerce for which he was charged with violating the Federal Securities Act. After pleading guilty, being placed on five years' probation, and ordered to repay creditors $1.6 million, Fuller Products entered bankruptcy in 1971. Although the company reorganized, reported profits of $300,000 in 1972, and the cosmetics portion of the old company was rebuilt, it never returned to the firm's previous levels of size or profitability.
In 1976, Fuller, as a result of health problems, asked his top distributor, Joe Louis Dudley, Sr., to move to Chicago and become President of the Fuller Products Company. Dudley ran both Fuller Products Company and Dudley Products Company from 1976 until 1984. In 1984, Fuller Products Company was purchased by Dudley.
Fuller was eighty-three years of age when he died at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois
Blue Island, Illinois
Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois. The population was 22,556 at the 2010 census. Blue Island was established in the 1830s as a way station for settlers traveling on the Vincennes Trace, and the settlement prospered because it was conveniently situated a day's journey outside of Chicago...
from kidney failure.