{"id":1378,"date":"2013-06-25T15:19:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T22:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/?p=1378"},"modified":"2018-04-10T08:26:16","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T15:26:16","slug":"gaston-arthur-george-1892","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/?p=1378","title":{"rendered":"GASTON, ARTHUR GEORGE, 1892-1996"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Biography:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Entrepreneur. Born&#8211; July 4, 1892, Demopolis. Parents&#8211;Tom and Rosa Gaston. \u00a0Married&#8211;\u00a0Creola Smith Gaston. Children&#8211; One. Education&#8211; Study at Tuggle Institute, a private school for African-American students in Birmingham. Served in U.S.Army, WWI. \u00a0Laborer at Tennessee Coal, Iron &amp; Steel Co.;\u00a0in 1923\u00a0organized, with L.A. Smith,\u00a0 a burial society which grew into a Forty-million-dollar business empire including an insurance company and other enterprises including a chain of funeral homes, a business college, City Federal Savings and Loan Association; and Gaston Enterprises, a corporation including a motel, cemetery, realty and investment company, mortuary, and other businesses.\u00a0In 1953 established the A.G. Gaston Spelling Bee for\u00a0elementary school students; by 1965 every school in Birmingham was participating. Supported many philanthropic enterprises and though non-confrontational himself gave financial support to Civil Rights leaders in the state. \u00a0Honorary degrees from six institutions; sixty awards, and citations and honors from presidents Truman, Johnson, and Nixon. Named &#8220;Entrepreneur of the Century&#8221; by <em>Black Enterprise<\/em> magazine, 1992.\u00a0 Died January 19, 1996.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ebony Success Library, Vol. 2; Who&#8217;s Who among Black Americans, 1980-1981; Encyclopedia of Alabama.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Publication(s):<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Green Power; the Successful Way of A.G. Gaston. Birmingham, Ala.; Southern University Press, 1968.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biography: Entrepreneur. Born&#8211; July 4, 1892, Demopolis. Parents&#8211;Tom and Rosa Gaston. \u00a0Married&#8211;\u00a0Creola Smith Gaston. Children&#8211; One. Education&#8211; Study at Tuggle Institute, a private school for African-American students in Birmingham. Served in U.S.Army, WWI. \u00a0Laborer at Tennessee Coal, Iron &amp; Steel Co.;\u00a0in 1923\u00a0organized, with L.A. Smith,\u00a0 a burial society which grew into a Forty-million-dollar business empire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-g-i"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1378"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7805,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions\/7805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lib.ua.edu\/Alabama_Authors\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}