Businessman First: Remembering Henry G. Parks, Jr. 1916-1989 Capturing the Life of a Businessman Who Was African American a Biography

By Maurice W. Dorsey

More than his ad More Parks Sausages Mom! Please! Henry G. Parks, Jr. was a man before his time. Pioneering in the American free enterprise system he embarked on a journey leading to a multi-million dollar industry. After many endeavors in business, The H.G. Parks, Inc. trading as Parks Sausage became a reality in 1951. With strong aggressive leadership, brilliant marketing and advertising, Mr. Parks build a business that never posted a losing year under his ownership. Parks Sausage was the first African American owned business to issue stock publicly.

Mr. Parkssuccess caught the attention of some of the leading corporate boards in this country along with national organizations, city, state, and federal leaders. They sought to bring him aboard to share his knowledge, leadership skills, and ability with other leading American business, government and non-profit leaders. This is the story of a businessman who was African American and was optimistic and determined while achieving ultimate success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493114801

Maurice W. Dorsey

Maurice W. Dorsey is the author of From Whence We Come, a novel based upon a true story; and Businessman First: Remembering Henry G. Parks, Jr., (1916–1989), Capturing the Life of a Businessman Who Was African American, A Biography. Of Time and Spirit is his third book. Since his retirement from the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture in 2012, he has been a writer, public speaker, and advocate for the LGBTQ community. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, earning a bachelor of science degree in family and consumer sciences (1970) and a doctorate in philosophy in education (1983). He also earned a master’s degree in arts and sciences from the Johns Hopkins University (1975) and a master’s degree in education from Loyola University of Maryland (1976). He resides in Washington DC.

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Copyright © 2013 by Maurice W. Dorsey.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013918589

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4931-1479-5

                Softcover        978-1-4931-1478-8

                Ebook             978-1-4931-1480-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 10/22/2013

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Businessman First

Apprenticeships And Early Career

Founding H. G. Parks Inc.

Financing H. G. Parks Inc. And William Lloyd Little Willie Adams

USDA Inspection And Interstate Commerce

Advertising

Women At H. G. Parks Inc.

Sales And Marketing

Publicity

Training And Continued Learning

New Ventures

Unionized Employees

New Products

Phase Ii Expansion

Stock Issue

Selling H. G. Parks Inc. To The Norin Corporation

Chapter 2 Corporate America

First Pennsylvania Corporation

Magnavox Company

Urban National Corporation / Vnc Ventures

W. R. Grace & Company Inc.

First Pennsylvania Bank Na

Signal Companies

Warner-Lambert Company

Chapter 3 Public Servant

Elected To The Baltimore City Council, Fourth District

Appointed President Of The Board Of Fire Commissioner For The City Of Baltimore

Chapter 4 Giving Back

National Urban League Inc.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Kappa Chapter

National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People (NAACP)

Goucher College

Provident Hospital

The Johns Hopkins University Center For Metropolitan Planning And Research

Arena Players Inc.

The National Dental Association

The Interracial Council For Business Opportunity

The United Negro College Fund

Black Enterprise Magazine

Chapter 5 Honors And Recognitions

The New York Amsterdam News

Young Men’s Christian Association (Ymca)

The District Of Columbia Chamber Of Commerce

The New York Courier

The Small Business Men’s League Of Baltimore

Philadelphia Citizens Selection Committee

The Greater New Haven Business And Professional Men’s Association

The H. G. Parks Inc. Employees

The Baltimore Frontiers Club

Temple University

Morgan State University

Junior Achievement Of Metropolitan Baltimore

Arena Players Inc.

The Baltimore Marketing Association Inc.

The Greater Baltimore Committee

The United Negro College Fund Inc.

Warner-Lambert Company

Chapter 6 Family

Siblings

Marriage

Children And Grandchildren

Chapter 7 Finale

Honored Wounds

Healing Moments

Service Of Memory

Epilogue

Appendix I

Appendix II

Appendix III

Appendix IV

Bibliography

List Of Illustrations

To youth who someday want to go into business.

—Henry G. Parks Jr.

PREFACE

T he likelihood of Henry G. Parks and I meeting was orchestrated by the universe. With more than three decades’ difference in our ages, and despite economic disparity, social class difference, and geographical separation, we became friends and had a relationship that survived for more than a decade.

The purpose of telling this story is to record a significant piece of African American history that may otherwise go unrecorded. It is also to keep a promise I made to him almost thirty years ago.

During the early 1900s, African Americans made significant accomplishments as inventors, scientists, abolitionists, entertainers, lawyers, and athletes. With the exception of Madame J. Walker, Barry Gordy, and John Johnson, few African Americans pioneered the American free-enterprise system to the extent of Henry G. Parks.

Henry and I met in Baltimore, Maryland, at a time when I was more or less starting a career, and he was more or less concluding his. I was completely captivated by his person and ambitious accomplishments. I was a Baltimore-unknown having started my life in rural Edgewood, Maryland. Henry and I spent hours together, usually over meals at his Baltimore home in the Bolton Hill neighborhood, Sess’s—a local restaurant—or the Baltimore Center Club.

Although his home on Bolton Hill was far more exclusive than his previous home on Reservoir Street, it was simply appointed and housed numerous Haitian paintings he collected from his solo trips. There was a vinyl-covered sofa a friend had given him and a black leather directional director’s chair I sold to him from the start of an interior design project that went south. I loved the sound of Henry’s front doorbell, and I would often walk to the front courtyard entrance (that was a longer distance than from his rear entrance) just to hear the doorbell chime.

We talked incessantly about his life, both trials and tribulations, as he built the H. G. Parks Inc., and the happiness and struggles of his personal life. He introduced me to his family and closest personal friends. The contents of this book come from many of our conversations and his personal files that he passed on to me prior to his death.

This was a project that we worked on together. It was a project he wanted completed, and I was honored that he entrusted me, over several others, with the completion of this project. Henry provided me his lifetime’s worth of personal files, including photographs of family, friends, and of his Baltimore City Council years; newspaper and magazine articles; advertising and marketing ads; copies of speeches; plaques and awards; personal letters from his daughter and grandson; and other memorabilia. I have kept this material for close to thirty years. Some items I photographed for my records and some have been donated to the Maryland Historical Society and to the Baltimore City Life Museums.

This book was written to celebrate Henry’s life and his achievements, and to support aspiring business leaders, educators, community leaders, and neighborhood volunteers who consider going into business. With the exception of my personal interviews with family and friends, most of Henry’s life is documented in a wide range of publications throughout the country. He was a highly successful businessman whom some called a marketing genius, a friend, a mentor, and a partial father figure to me. He inspired others and was universally admired. Hopefully, others can build on this biographical account and expand his story.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge my life-defining people and individuals that have supported this project over the years:

Robert James Battjes, DSW

Archie Buffkins, PhD

Tamera Coleman

Curtiland Deville

Mr. and Mrs. James Roswell Dorsey Sr.

James Roswell Dorsey, Jr.

A. J. Dye, PhD

Raymond V. Haysbert Sr.

Daniel Huden, PhD

George Johnson, PhD

Grace G. Johnson

Mr. and Mrs. Luther Johnson

Marc Johnson

Robert Koopman, PhD

Daniel Kugler, PhD

Frederic Breed Mayo, PhD

Margaret D. Pagan

Cheryl Parks

Alice Pinderhughes

Pedro Ribalta

Robert E. Lee Ross

Evelyn Pasture Valentine, EdD

Mr. and Mrs. Clay Wilson

Silas Roscoe Young

INTRODUCTION

C onsidering the racial and economic discrimination against African Americans who wished to enter the American system of business, Henry G. Parks Jr. was before his time. He, with limited capital, navigated the American free-enterprise ideal, started a business, and within two decades, built a multimillion-dollar enterprise. Most people familiar with the slogan More Parks’ Sausages, Mom, Please! did not know that he was Negro.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, but raised in Dayton, Ohio, Henry was a man who loved his paternal grandmother, who lived with her son and daughter-in-law. She attended church regularly. She taught Henry to read the Bible, and by the time Henry was five years old, he was quoting the Bible. In his youth, many thought Henry would become a preacher. In his young adulthood, he still held this as a consideration, but it was a church sermon that persuaded him to change his mind and go into business instead.

His father worked as a bartender at the Biltmore Hotel in Ohio. During the depression of 1928, Henry’s father asked his wife if she would join him in the workforce to help hold the family together, and she agreed. She became a maid in the same hotel that her husband worked. Henry was the oldest of the three children. He was twelve. Dayton, Ohio, was above the Mason-Dixon Line; African Americans were free, but getting a job was difficult, and it was referred to as the segregated north.

Henry was especially loved by his mother, Gainelle Esther Williams, born April 24, 1896. She was from Birmingham, Alabama. She enjoyed rose gardening and especially enjoyed the red, white, and pink as they bloomed in their season. Over the years, Henry learned to love them just as much. Henry learned to play tennis and to swim at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). He was a lifeguard at the pool. He taught his mother both sports.

Henry was endeared to his mother, and tears would come to his eyes when he reflected on her memory as I interviewed him. He said she worked hard. She died of Parkinson’s disease. This was a sad recollection for Henry. His sister Vera, in an interview, said, Henry moved mother to Baltimore so she could go to the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She got the best of care.

Henry’s relationship with his father, Henry Sr. (born August 14, 1890, in Atlanta, Georgia), was strained in his childhood and young adulthood. First, Henry Sr. thought his son’s activities with his mother were not masculine. Second, in regard to swimming and tennis, his father did not believe these were serious sports, and especially not for Negro men.

Henry Sr. liked to fish and hunt, but he never took Henry with him. However, when he returned from his solo hunting trips, Henry was charged with cleaning his father’s catch of fish and wildlife. This was a punishment for being so close to his mother and not attaching to his father as was expected.

In addition to hunting and fishing, Henry Sr. owned hound dogs for sport, and Henry was charged with walking and cleaning up behind them. Henry disliked these chores and disliked his father for making him perform them. In these instances, Henry’s mother could not protect her son.

On one occasion, while Henry was walking the dogs, one of the hunting dogs broke away and was lost. His father got very angry. Henry Sr. was very strong. He knew that his son loved his tennis equipment and worked hard and saved his money to purchase it. Henry Sr. located the tennis racket, took out his penknife, and cut out the center netting from the racket. He cut up Henry’s tennis shoes too. Henry was a sensitive son. Tears streamed down his face, and under his breath, he called his father a son of a bitch. When I met Henry fifty years later, he still called his father a son of a bitch when he thought of this incident.

In some father-son relationships, fathers feel that if the son does not follow a clear masculine model, it somehow reflects on them. Henry rooted his feelings of hurt and resentment toward his father, but simultaneously, these situations also fueled and strengthened his determination to be successful and not endure any more of his father’s abuse.

Throughout his young adult years, Henry maintained that his father was punitive and abusive to him.

In his senior years, he learned how difficult life was and forgave his father. He acknowledged his family was poor, and his father worked hard. His father worked long hours and was never home. Henry eventually learned through his life experiences that he could not judge his father because he too worked long hours and was never home when building the H. G. Parks Inc. He gave his father credit for holding the family together.

Henry was tall, handsome, possessed an athletic built, was well dressed and well behaved, and was a scholarly student. He was a voracious reader and participated in numerous school and civic activities. He