A.G. Gaston (1892-1996)
A.G. Gaston, a black millionaire, represented the conservative interests of Birmingham's black community during the protests and demonstrations of 1963. Born in 1892 in a rural Alabama town to impoverished parents, Gaston became one of the richest black men in the United States. His enterprises ranged from banking and insurance to real estate and business colleges. By the end of his life, beneficiaries of his charitable activities included the YMCA, the A.G. Gaston Boys and Girls Club, Tuskegee University and other educational institutions.
Civil Rights Era
A member of the Chamber of Commerce with political connections of his own, Gaston initially resented Martin Luther King's intrusion into local affairs during the 1963 Birmingham protests. Earlier that year, the city had adopted a different form of municipal government, and the notorious Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor lost his election bid. Consequently, Gaston and other businessmen wanted to give the new mayor an opportunity to address black grievances. Despite his unhappiness with elements of King's involvement, however, Gaston continued to provide financial support to Birmingham's black leaders. His ambivalence would change, however, after the violence of May 1963.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had designated May 2 as "D-Day," organizing hundreds of black schoolchildren who marched from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to protest segregation in downtown Birmingham. Retaining his power as Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor arrested over six hundred children, but another thousand marched on May 3. The SCLC recruited youth marchers because their arrests would not destroy family incomes, but on May 3, the march erupted into violence. Connor ordered police dogs to attack the children, and fire hoses blasted marchers with enough pressure to strip the bark from trees.
After this violent attack on children Gaston and other undecided members of the black community fully backed the SCLC's demand for racial justice and equality in Birmingham. Gaston remained active in the black community long after the successful conclusion of the protests, as his numerous charitable commitments demonstrated. He died in 1996 at the age of 103.
Bibliography
Information for this biography was gathered from the following sources:
- Interview with A.G. Gaston, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on November 1, 1985, for Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection.
- Hampton, Henry and Steve Fayer. Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1960s. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.
- Jenkins, Carol and Elizabeth Gardner Hines. Black Titan: A.G.Gaston and the Making of a Black Millionaire. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.
- Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965. New York: Viking, 1987.