Jesse Hill Jr.

Jesse Hill Jr. (May 30, 1926 – December 17, 2012) was an African American civil rights activist. He was active in the civic and business communities of the city for more than five decades. Hill was president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, from 1973 to 1992, and was the first African American to be elected president of a chamber of commerce in a major city. During Hill's presidency of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company it became the largest black-owned life insurance company in the nation. He was a member of the board of directors for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Early life

Born in 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Nancy Dennis Martin and Jesse Hill, he grew up in a poor socio-economic background and attended public schools in St. Louis. He graduated from Lincoln University in Jefferson City with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics in 1947. He received his MBA from the University of Michigan in 1949.

Career

Hill's career in business began in 1949 when he moved to Atlanta, the center of African American entrepreneurship in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. He joined the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, one of the country's largest and most successful black-owned businesses, as assistant actuary; he was only the second African American actuary in the country. When he first moved to the city, Hill lived at the Butler Street YMCA in Atlanta, the headquarters of the city's black leadership during the period. He also volunteered for both the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People