Samuel B. Fuller

After going to Chicago in 1928, Fuller worked in a wide range of menial jobs, eventually rising to become manager of a coal yard.

Along with his friend Lestine Thornton (who later became his wife), he invested in a load of soap from Boyer International Laboratories, manufacturer of Jean Nadal Cosmetics and HA Hair Arranger.

In four years he would be promoted to a manager at Commonwealth while continuing to grow his own company to a line of 30 products and hiring additional door-to-door salespeople.

The substantial number of African American families who moved to the South side of Chicago during the Great Migration became the customer base from which Fuller Products would see tremendous expansion.

The company began to manufacture and sell a diverse line of commodities from deodorant and hair care to hosiery and men's suits.

Howard was a wealthy black entrepreneur and a prominent civil rights leader and mentor to Medgar Evers.

He hired Howard to be medical director of Fuller Products and supported his Republican campaign for Congress in 1958.

Despite his opinion, the White Citizens Councils organized a boycott of Fuller's Nadal products line during the 1950s, when they learned an African American owned the company.

During his acceptance speech he stated that "a lack of understanding of the capitalist system and not racial barriers was keeping blacks from making progress."

Major national black leaders reacted angrily and called for a boycott of Fuller Products.

In 1968, Fuller sold unregistered promissory notes in interstate commerce for which he was charged with violating the Federal Securities Act.

After pleading guilty, being placed on five years' probation, and ordered to repay creditors $1.6 million, Fuller Products entered bankruptcy in 1971.

Fuller was eighty-three years of age when he died at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois from kidney failure.