George Beavers, Jr. (1892-1989)

January 19, 2007

George Beavers

Courtesy UCLA Special Collections

George Beavers, Jr. was born in 1892 in the Mechanicsville section of Atlanta, Georgia. His parents decided to leave Atlanta with their children in 1902 after white mob violence erupted in their neighborhood. They settled in Los Angeles, expecting to find “full citizenship rights and better living conditions.”

In 1915, Beavers and his wife, Willie Mae, helped found the People’s Independent Church, which became a force for social change. They were active in the NAACP and respected community leaders. In 1925, Beavers, along with William Nickerson, Jr. and Norman O. Houston, established what would become Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company. The company was begun in response to discriminatory practices across the insurance industry: higher prices for less coverage, refusal to provide loans, and whites-only sales staff. As Beavers himself put it, he and his partners decided “there was a need for such a company (because) at that time, Negroes received very inferior insurance policies and very little opportunity to benefit from their insurance dollars.” Starting in 1928, Golden State Mutual operated from the famed Central Avenue in Los Angeles. By 1948, the firm moved to permanent headquarters designed by architect Paul Williams and located on Adams Boulevard and Western Avenue, in the “sugar hill” district, home to Hollywood stars, business leaders, and other affluent African Americans, where it still stands.

In 1946, Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron appointed Beavers to the City of Los Angeles Housing Authority Commission, on which Beavers served for 15 years. The Commission dealt with the huge post-war demand for affordable housing in the city and the compromise that resulted in the city erecting only 40 percent of the public housing originally funded by the federal government.

Beavers died in 1989, after a lifetime of successful entrepreneurship, civic service- including support for the NAACP and Urban League– and a prominent role in the Los Angeles community.

About the Author

Author Profile

Susan Anderson

Susan Anderson specializes in writing about African American history, politics, and culture, with an emphasis on California and Los Angeles. Since 1999 she has been a contributor to the Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion. Her articles and essays have appeared in The Nation, LA Weekly, LA Architect, Mother Jones, Quarterly Review of Black Literature and other publications. She is the author of "Rivers of Water in a Dry Place: Early Black Participation in California Politics," in Racial and Ethnic Politics in California published by the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, and; "A City Called Heaven: Black Enchantment and Despair in Los Angeles," in The City: Los Angeles and Urban Theory at the End of the Twentieth Century, edited by Allen J. Scott and Edward W. Soja, University of California Press.

She was the 2006 Lois Langland Alumna-in-Residence at Scripps College, Claremont, California, where she shared her research on the all-black independent town of Allensworth. Two of her public talks can be heard or downloaded from www.scrippscollege.edu/sounds .

Categories:
African American History People in African American History

Tags:

Fani Willis (1971- )

Fani Taifa Willis is the first Black woman to hold the office of District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia. Willis… ...

Robert Johnson Omohundro (1921-2000)

Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1921, physicist Robert Johnson Omohundro was one of a select few black scientists and technicians… ...

Bill Jones (1933-2012)

Activist, existential philosopher, professor, and Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Dr. William “Bill” Ronald Jones dedicated his career to the analysis… ...

Damu Smith (1952-2006)

Leroy Wesley Smith was born in St. Louis Missouri on December 6, 1951, and became a late 20th Century social… ...

Zoë Saldaña (1978- )

Zoë Saldaña is an accomplished actress and dancer known for her roles in four of the six highest-grossing films produced… ...

The Webster Telephone Exchange Building (1906- )

Located at 2213 Lake Street in North Omaha, Nebraska, the Webster Telephone Exchange Building is an important Black heritage site… ...

Huel Davis Perkins (1924-2013)

Huel Davis Perkins, a distinguished composer, pianist, professor, administrator, and orator, was born on December 27, 1924, in Baton Rouge,… ...

Thomas Bailey Shropshire (1925-2003)

Thomas Bailey Shropshire, a Past Grand Sire Archon of the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity (The Boulé), was a transformative figure… ...

Do you find this information helpful?

A small donation would help us keep this available to all. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone.

BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Your donation is fully tax-deductible.

DONATE

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Anderson, S. (2007, January 19). George Beavers, Jr. (1892-1989). BlackPast.org. https://new.blackpast.org/african-american-history/beavers-jr-george-1892-1989/

Source of the Author's Information:

Douglas Flamming, Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005);Oral History, conducted by R. Donald Brown, Center for Oral and Public History, California State University Fullerton, 1966; The Community Development Technologies Center ,“Golden State Mutual,” African-American Businesses: The Next Generation (New York: Merrill Lynch Foundation, 2002); Los Angeles Public Library business reference.