William Nickerson Jr. (January 26, 1879 – November 14, 1945) was a prominent Los Angeles–based businessman and founder of Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, which at one time was the largest black-owned business west of the Mississippi.
Instead, Nickerson was forced to eat in a dimly lit, unsanitary restaurant with poor service that catered to African Americans.
[4] Nickerson accepted the job, which was as an underwriter for the Dallas-based Southern Mutual Benefit Association, an insurance company.
However, when Southern Mutual was taken over by American National Insurance of Galveston, Texas, this disrupted the firm which prompted Nickerson to consider another career.
Despite the encouragement of his wife to take advantage of the relative security of civil service, Nickerson instead chose to continue with insurance, which by now had become a passion for him.
B. Grisby, Forrest T. Perkins, London Franks, W. H. Parker and C. H. Green, he received a charter from the state of Texas to form the American Mutual Benefit Association.
Their company aggressively sold "fraternal" insurance to Texas blacks and quickly grew to one of the largest black-owned businesses west of the Mississippi.
The night before the meeting, Nickerson drafted a formal ritual for policyholders to comply with the requirement that they be a "lodge" or fraternal order.
After members of the Ku Klux Klan allegedly burned a cross in front of his home, he finally moved to Los Angeles and established a branch of the American Mutual Benefit Association.
[2][3] Despite nearly 40,000 African Americans in California at the time, insurance companies regarded them as either uninsurable or extremely high risk.
For several days, Nickerson studied the intricacies of insurance regulations to uncover a law that was sufficiently flexible to accommodate his situation.
[4] However, several additional hurdles had to be overcome including a move by the California Legislature to increase the financial requirements for a mutual life insurance company.
Nickerson met every challenge and on February 24, 1925, the articles of incorporation were filed for the Golden State Guarantee Fund Insurance Company.
[5] The Political Graveyard shows that William Nickerson Jr. was a candidate for presidential elector on the Republican ticket of Dewey-Bricker in 1944.