Blazing a trail for 100 years: A.G. Gaston, B.E.'s 'Entrepreneur of the Century.' set the tone for a generation to follow.

He was called the "dean of black business." And it was a designation Arthur George Gaston worked day and night for decades to earn. A legendary entrepreneur and likely one of the country's first African American millionaires, Gaston was a business success story at a time when society at large believed a black man wasn't intelligent enough to sit at the head of a corporate table. But over the course of his long life, Gaston took great pleasure in proving those naysayers wrong. He used both his money and influence in the corporate arena to pave a path for black entrepreneurs to follow behind. But after years of battling the odds, Gaston passed away in january after suffering his second stroke in four years. He was 103 years old and still going to work nearly every day.

A grandson of former slaves, Gaston was born in 1892 and started his climb up the corporate ladder doing a variety of odd jobs including work as a bellhop and as an iron worker, where he earned $3.10 a day. Flash forward to 1992 and Gaston oversaw a massive business empire in Birmingham, Ala., that included Citizens Federal Savings Bank (No. 21 on the BE FINANCIAL 25 list with $81 million in assets) and the Booker T. Washington Insurance Co. (No. 6 on the BE INSURANCE list with assets of $44 million). His portfolio included a realty and investment company, a cemetery, funeral home, two radio stations, a senior citizens center and a business college, all of which led BLACK ENTERPISE to name Gaston "Entrepreneur of the Century" in June of that year.

Gaston's motto for success was simple: "Money has no color," he said during a 1992 interview with BE. "If you can build a better mousetrap, it won't matter whether you're black or white, people will buy it."

But when all is said and done, it is the leadership and influence Gaston wielded most of his life that will be missed the most.

"Every black entrepreneur and businessperson in America should be made aware that if not for the groundbreaking achievements of A.G. Gaston, we would not have been able to succeed in the business world," says BE publisher Earl G. Graves. "His accomplishmets are especially noteworthy because they were made during the era of Jim Crow, long before the advent of affirmative action and minority set-asides, when black entrepreneurs faced seemingly insurmountable odds."

Thomas L. Clark Jr., CEO of Carver Federal Savings Bank (No. 1 on the BE FINANCIAL 25 list) says the message Gaston preached about the necessity of business ownership is relevant now more than ever. "He was the best of what America had to offer in the way of a true success story when it comes to economic empowerment, black or white," Clark says. "He opened the door and showed that you could do it yourself."

Gaston's first business venture began in 1923 with the creation of Smith and Gaston Funeral Directors, an insurance company that sold burial policies to blacks after seeing white insurance companies largely ignore black customers. In 1932, the funeral home was incorporated as Booker T. Washington Burial Insurance Co., and Gaston used revenues from that business to fund his other ventures. He started BTW Business College in 1939 to train black clerical workers. In 1947, he bought New Grace Hill Cemeteries Inc. And in 1954, he opened Gaston Motel in downtown Birmingham for black travelers who were still shut out of white-owned establishments. The site gained a place in history when it became the headquarters for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1963 Birmingham demonstrations.

Gaston soon decided to start his own thrift because blacks couldn't borrow from white-owned banks. After getting rejected for a charter on several occasions, Gaston was eventually able to get Citizens Federal Savings Bank chartered in 1956. In 1975, he acquired R&B formatted WENN-FM and gospel formatted WAGG-AM in Birmingham. Gaston eventually owned or controlled nine corporations with combined assets a few years ago of more than $35 million. Although he was in ill health the last few years, losing one leg in the mid-'80s to diabetes and suffering a mild stroke in 1992, Gaston remained a workhorse to the end. As the active chairman of Citizens Federal, he met with the thrift's board of directors monthly. He last visited his office just 10 days before his death. "He was clearly a mentor to any black person who entered the business field in the last 50 years," says Johnson Publishing Co. CEO John H. Johnson. "He was always looking for opportunities to start new businesses, and I think he appreciated that young people took his advice and counsel to succeed." Gaston lived his life working from a number of business principles, one of which was "Find a need and fill it. Successful businesses are founded on the needs of people." It was by filling the needs so many others, say those that knew him, that enabled Gaston to leave a foundation for others to build upon.