Photo: George Ellis Johnson Sr. founded Johnson Products Company in Chicago, creating products such as Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen, https://aaregistry.org/story/george-e-johnson-was-a-natural-businessman/
Chicago-based investment company Ariel Investments is thriving, but its CEO gives a nod to the Black businesses that came before.
“In the past here in Chicago, we had these giant Black businesses,” Ariel CEO John Rogers said during a 2021 virtual conversation co-presented by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “They employed hundreds of thousands of people and created enormous amounts of philanthropy.”
Rogers said that George Johnson, who founded the haircare company with his wife, Joan, created the now-closed Independence Bank, once the largest Black bank in the country, and buoyed other Black-led organizations with meager resources.
“We need to get back to where Chicago is the mecca, where we had these large Black businesses that hired people, that were inspirations. They were role models,” he said.
