Anthony Overton

Born Entrepreneur

[Reprinted from Issues & Views Spring 1997]

Some people's lives appear to take a straight course, one that begins with set goals and desires, and zooms forward, like an arrow that seeks and finds its target. Along the way, some details of the goal may get refined and even altered, but there is never any doubt that the goal will be achieved. Such people seem unfazed by setbacks, which they make sure are nothing more than temporary. And they seem to possess an instinctive understanding of what's required of them, in order to get from Point A to Point B. It could be that the right stuff owned by these intrepid souls include a big ego, confidence, ambition, innate intelligence and the right attitude. Anthony Overton possessed all these--and in abundance.

Although born into slavery in 1865, in Monroe, Louisiana, this fact does not appear to have been a deterrence to Overton. After the Civil War, when his family moved to Kansas, he attended public schools and, in 1888, earned a bachelor of laws degree from Topeka's Washburn College. After admission to the state bar, he practiced law for a while and even served for a year as a judge.

But his heart was not in law, and he yearned to apply his logical mind to creating a business of his own devising. He observed the success of businesses around him, as small enterprises grew into larger ones, and sometimes into empires. Besides the potential wealth that could be acquired if one was successful, Overton was drawn to the endless creative possibilities of business. He began to study all aspects of manufacturing and retailing.

In 1898, he moved to Kansas City, Missouri. There, with his savings of almost $2,000, he founded the Overton Hygienic Manufacturing Company, and manufactured a product he called Hygienic Pet Baking Powder. For some time he had closely followed the progress of women's cosmetics and hair products, an industry showing profits in the millions. He decided that this was an important market, and began to create cosmetics specifically suited for the complexions of black women.

The company grew, in spite of suffering a severe financial loss caused by the great flood of 1903, which almost demolished Kansas City's business district. With bankruptcy looming, Overton brushed himself off and redoubled his selling efforts, successfully reaching what one biographer called "a market that was ripe for tapping." He patented his cosmetics and a line of perfumes under the name "High Brown." In a move that was unusual, he insisted that the company create its own odor bases for its perfumes.

While sales throughout the United States flourished, Overton began to tap international markets. He was soon getting orders for his products from Egypt, Liberia, and even Japan. By the time he moved his company to Chicago in 1911, his company employed a salaried sales force, as well as 400 door-to-door sales people. By 1912, Overton Hygienic manufactured 52 products. By 1915, the number had risen to 62, and the company was capitalized at $268,000. In 1927, the company's Bradstreet rating exceeded $1 million.

A New Venture

The success of this first company proved to Overton that now he could really get creative. Dare he add a publication to his ventures? After all, these were years when American blacks were inundated with conjectures and theories about what should be the race's priorities. All kinds of competing doctrines raged, and Overton wanted his voice to be heard.

Should black energies be committed to developing the race economically, that is, emulating that which Overton and thousands of others were doing--mastering business to assure greater economic independence from whites? Or should blacks strive to enter those institutions and enterprises already created by whites, and thereby become aggressive integrationists? Everybody seemed to have an opinion, and Anthony Overton was a very opinionated man. What better way to share his views than in the pages of a magazine?

In 1916, Overton published the first edition of The Half-Century, a magazine that was to enjoy success until he phased it out in 1925. The publication's emphasis was cultural, and articles kept readers up to date on organizations like the National Negro Business League, women's organizations and black theater. Regular features offered relevant race news, political news as it affected blacks, a legal advice column and fashions for women. There were inspirational pieces, as well as serialized stories by black writers of fiction. A large-sized, attractive magazine, it carried advertising from white as well as black companies and stores.

But, of course, the Page One main feature was publisher Overton's editorial. Every subject under the sun was fair game for comment. To Overton, race pride was simply a given. And pride of race automatically meant a commitment to self-help. Although he encouraged his readers to support the NAACP's efforts to "unsaddle lynching, disfranchisement and jim crowism," which he called "wicked forces which pollute and belie America's claim of the land of the free," he did not support those who would dismantle black society in favor of assimilation.

He was especially disdainful of those he considered intellectual elitists, whom he accused of misleading blacks by design. For a host of reasons, at the top of his list of disdain was W.E.B. Du Bois. In his very first editorial, Overton wrote:

It will not be our sole ambition to make this magazine a 'literary gem' either for our own gratification or to suit the fancy of the 'high-brows,' but to present facts in plain, commonsense language, so that the masses may read and understand; or, in the words of Brother Taylor, we propose to call a 'spade a spade' and not an 'excavating instrument for manual manipulation.'

In another editorial, he describes one type of black leader who is "actually doing things for the race's advancement," and another type who "has assumed leadership based upon falsification, gall, treachery, bigotry, egotism and borrowed oratory." He dismissed those who failed to understand the role he believed business had to play in solutions to the "race problem." He wrote:

"We appreciate that we are now living in a commercial era and that the factors of paramount importance in the solution of this problem are economy, industry--the making and saving of money--and business development."

Overton used his magazine (and later his newspaper) to protest the race restrictions then prevailing. But he never failed to urge blacks to recognize the many freedoms they possessed to improve their lives, even within these restrictions.

Still More Ventures

Most men who presided over a successful manufacturing company and published an equally successful magazine would have considered their plate full. But Anthony Overton was being tugged at to bring his experience to yet another venture. Since the late 19th century, blacks had been establishing private and state-chartered banks in cities around the country (see Issues & Views, Fall 1996). Overton answered the call to seek a national charter for a bank that could act as a clearing house for black banks and businesses. In 1922, the Douglass National Bank opened its doors with Overton as its first president.

The next year, Overton founded the Victory Life Insurance Company, hoping not only to encourage thrifty habits, but to create a solid vehicle to provide jobs for blacks. The company was a phenomenal success, and by 1925, it had branches in eight states, and enjoyed a hefty surplus. It continued to expand through 1931, when its officers began to challenge some of Overton's investment strategies. He had invested the company's original capital primarily in first mortgages on homes. As the effects of the Great Depression took hold, and real estate values plunged downward, Victory Life was in serious trouble. The company's directors (probably correctly) felt that the duties of Douglass National Bank prevented Overton from giving the insurance company his wisest attention. They voted to oust him, and managed to save the company.

Along the way, during these years, Overton had closed down The Half-Century and had founded the Chicago Bee newspaper, a publication which, right into the 1940s, had a loyal national following. Also, along the way, to house his many enterprises and to provide office space for other black entrepreneurs, Overton built a commercial building he named the Overton Hygienic/Douglass National Bank Building. Many a business that went on to future success began its life in this building.

When, in 1932, the Depression caught up with Douglass National Bank, it folded as did most of the banks in Chicago. As regards Overton's companies, like so many others who tried to stem the tide of the oncoming Depression, he made some injudicious and even some unsavory investments. His deeds did not warrant legal action, but he did lose a chunk of his business empire as he fought off bankruptcy. More fortunate than others who lost their shirts and more, Overton managed to weather the storm and lived out his final years in financial comfort. He died in 1946.

Copyright 1997 Issues & Views