Robert Theophilus Bess Jr. (February 5, 1889 – after October 1958) was a British Guiana-born American

stockbroker A stockbroker is an individual or company that buys and sells stocks and other investments for a financial market participant in return for a commission, markup, or fee. In most countries they are regulated as a broker or broker-dealer and ...

, civil rights activist, public relations manager, and pharmacist. He founded the R. T. Bess Company in New York City, a stock brokerage firm, which was the only black-owned stock brokerage on Wall Street in 1932.Juliet E. K. Walker,
Encyclopedia of African American Business History
' (Greenwood Press, 1999), p. 322, 630. He was also the only black stockbroker in New York City the early-1930s. Bess founded the Anti-Discrimination Job League, Inc. in 1936, which worked to fight for law change in New York and nationally. Starting in 1947, he formed Robert T. Bess Assoc., a public relations firm.

Biography

Bess was born a British subject in Plaisance,

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies. It was located on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first known Europeans to encounter Guia ...

(today

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

), one of three sons of parents Isabella Elizabeth (''née'' Cappell) and Robert T. Bess. One of his brothers, Dr. Edward E. Bess (1895–1956) became president of the local

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

branch from 1939 to 1940. Bess worked as a pharmacist in his early career in British Guiana between 1911 and 1921. In 1913, he married Ellen Maud Talbot, and together they had 4 children. He was a Methodist and a member of the St. Mark's Methodist Episcopal Church (now St. Mark's United Methodist Church) in New York. From 1923 until 1933, he was the founding president of the R. T. Bess Company (also known as Robert T. Bess Corp.), a stock brokerage firm, initially located at 206-208 Broadway Street, New York City. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1927. In 1931, he was taken to court on

larceny Larceny is a crime involving the unlawful taking or theft of the personal property of another person or business. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of Eng ...

charges related to the R. T. Bess Company, and he was

exonerated Exoneration occurs when the conviction (law), conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate individuals are particularly controversial in death penal ...

of the charges a few months later. In 1932, his company was the only Black-owned stock brokerage on

Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

, and he was reportedly the only black stockbroker."Juliet E. K. Walker, ''The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship'' (1998), p. 259. The company was able to survive the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the resulting economic turmoil by "sticking at the wheel". During this time, Bess employed 9 white and 6 black office workers, and "promoted the interests of the Standard Television and Electric Company", asserting that they "offered an opportunity to colored people to reap millions of dollars in profit". Bess worked as an organizer for the Consolidated Tenants League, Inc. of Harlem. Starting in 1936, he was the founding president of the Anti-Discrimination Job League, Inc., and the National Anti-Discrimination Movement. Bess and the Anti-Discrimination Job League, Inc. lectured and fought for many years for the passage of laws to protect people from discrimination by insurance companies and employment agencies. The group supported the passage of the Ives-Quinn Act (signed in 1945 by Governor

Thomas E. Dewey Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 47th Governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican Party's nominee for president of the United States in 1944 and ...

). From 1943 to 1950, he worked as a pharmacist in New York City. Starting in 1947, he formed Robert T. Bess Assoc., a public relations firm located at W. 125th Street in West Harlem, New York City. He authored, "Ethiopia Shall Stretch Forth Her Hands to God" (1949). Bess was the founding president of the Nannie C. Burden Book Lovers Club, Inc. He eulogized Nannie C. Burden on

Decoration Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holidays in the United States, federal holiday in the United States for National day of mourning, mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States ...

in 1950 at the

Frederick Douglass Memorial Park Frederick Douglass Memorial Park is a historic cemetery for African Americans in the Oakwood neighborhood of Staten Island, New York. It is named for abolitionist, orator, statesman, and author Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), although he is not ...

cemetery. In October 1958, he was noted to be scheduled to speak at a public meeting on responding to the possibility of a

hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lo ...

attack.If H-Bomb Falls
, ''New York Daily News'' (October 12, 1958), p. 58.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bess, Robert T. 1889 births 20th-century deaths Year of death missing American people of Guyanese descent American people of British descent African-American businesspeople American stockbrokers American public relations people Activists for African-American civil rights American civil rights activists Businesspeople from Manhattan African-American pharmacists 20th-century American pharmacists Pharmacists from New York City Emigrants from British Guiana