A.G. Gaston expands business empire in Birmingham

A.G. Gaston of Birmingham, Alabama built one of the most significant Black business empires in the South during the 1940s, expanding from his Booker T. Washington Burial Insurance Company (founded 1923) to add a business college (1947), a motel (later used as civil rights movement headquarters), and a savings bank — all serving a segregated Black consumer market denied access to white institutions. By the 1950s he was a millionaire.