Background
Born into slavery, he was the son of his white master, Frank Herndon, and an enslaved woman, Sophenie. Together with his mother, her parents, and his younger brother, Herndon was emancipated in 1865, aged seven years old.
Born into slavery, he was the son of his white master, Frank Herndon, and an enslaved woman, Sophenie. Together with his mother, her parents, and his younger brother, Herndon was emancipated in 1865, aged seven years old.
The family worked in sharecropping in Social Circle, Georgia, forty miles east of Atlanta. In 1878, Herndon left Social Circle on foot and eventually went to Jonesboro, Clayton County, where he opened a barbershop. Herndon had only saved 11 dollars and only had approximately one year of schooling.
His barbering business thrived and expanded over the years.He later became the owner of three barbershops in Atlanta.
Those barbershops had elite customers such as presidents, judges, business men and lawyers, who frequented the barbershop. He went on to invest in real estate, and then entered insurance.
He successfully built up the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, operating in Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. Through his enterprises Herndon became Atlanta"s first black millionaire.
Herndon was featured in The Crisis Magazine’s “Men of the Month” in March 1921.
The article emphasizes his competence and success as a businessman. His home, Herndon Home, is a United States. National Historic Landmark. The Herndon Home was built in 1910 and may be visited at 587 University Place Northwest in the Vine City neighborhood.
lieutenant was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2000.
Herndon Homes, an Atlanta public housing project (now demolished) was named for Herndon, as was Herndon Stadium at Morris Brown College, which was the field hockey venue at the 1996 Summer Olympics.