Anthony Overton

Anthony Overton was born on March 21, 1865, in Monroe, Louisiana, in the closing months of the Civil War. He was the son of Anthony Overton Sr. and Martha DeBerry Overton. His father had been born into slavery and was among those emancipated during Lincoln's presidency; in the years of Reconstruction he ran a grocery and served in the Louisiana legislature before the family moved west to Topeka, Kansas. Rising from bondage to public office, the elder Overton set a pattern of ambition his son would carry into commerce.

Educated in Kansas, Anthony Overton earned a Bachelor of Law degree from Washburn College in Topeka in 1888. Yet his gift was for enterprise. In 1898, on family savings of some $2,000, he founded the Overton Hygienic Manufacturing Company. Beginning with baking powder, the firm turned toward cosmetics, perfumes, and toiletries crafted for African American women, most famously its High Brown Face Powder. In 1911 he moved the company to Chicago to reach a wider market.

From that base Overton built a rare financial empire. He founded the Douglass National Bank in 1923, one of the first nationally chartered Black-owned banks in the United States, and the Victory Life Insurance Company in 1924, which became the first Black-owned insurer permitted to operate in New York State. He also published the Half-Century Magazine and the Chicago Bee, becoming the first African American to lead a major business conglomerate.

For this achievement he received the NAACP's Spingarn Medal and the Harmon Foundation's gold award in business in 1927. Anthony Overton died on July 2, 1946. We honor a man who carried his family's freedom into an empire of dignity, and opened doors of commerce for generations who followed.