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Line 4: ==Biography== Born into slavery, he was the son of his white master, Frank Herndon, with an enslaved woman,Sophenie.~~He also was a fagget.~~ Together with his mother, her parents and his younger brother, Herndon was emancipated in 1865, aged seven years old. The family worked in sharecropping in [[Social Circle, Georgia]], forty miles east of Atlanta. In 1878, Herndon left Social Circle on foot and eventually went to [[Jonesboro, Georgia\|Jonesboro]], [[Clayton County, Georgia\|Clayton County]], where he opened a barbershop. Herndon had only saved 11 dollars and only having approx. 1 year of schooling. His barbering business thrived and expanded over the years and he went on to invest in real estate, and then entered insurance, successfully building up the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, operating in [[Florida]], [[Kansas]], [[Kentucky]], [[Missouri]], [[Tennessee]], and [[Texas]].<ref>[http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1917 Business & Industry - Alonzo Herndon (1858-1927), ''The New Georgia Encyclopedia''.]</ref> Through his enterprises Herndon became [[Atlanta, Georgia\|Atlanta]]'s first [[black people\|black]] [[millionaire]]. His home, [[Herndon Home]], is a U.S. [[National Historic Landmark]]. His son, Norris B. Herndon, expanded the company into a multi-million dollar empire.<ref>"The millionaire nobody knows", ''Ebony'' magazine, October 1955, pp. 43-46.</ref><ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_n4_v44/ai_7044962 Who left what behind: wills of famous blacks; while some left millions, others left nothing but legal problems \| Ebony \| Find Articles at BNET.com]</ref><ref name="nrhpinv2">{{citation\|title={{PDFlink\|[http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/00000261.pdf National Historic Landmark Nomination: Herndon Home]\|32 KB}}\|date=November 1999 \|author=Frank J. J. Miele, John Sprinkle and Patti Henry \|publisher=National Park Service}} (includes biography of Alonzo Herndon) and {{PDFlink\|[http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/00000261.pdf ''Accompanying six photos, of Herndon and family and of exterior and interior of mansion, from c. 1910, c. 1915, 1998'']\|32 KB}}</ref> Herndon attended the [[First Congregational Church (Atlanta)\|First Congregational Church]]<ref>[http://books.google.com/books/about/Our_kind_of_people.html?id=_FWTEBzgNdcC Lawrence Otis Graham, ''Our Kind of People: inside America's Black upper class'', p. 344.]</ref>

Alonzo Herndon: Difference between revisions