National Center for Civil and Human Rights

PNC Bank and Jazz 91.9 WCLK celebrate Atlanta's African American Business Leaders--Henry “Hank” James Thomas was born on August 29, 1941 in Jacksonville, Florida. He spent most of his childhood in St. Augustine. As a student at Howard University, Hank Thomas joined the first Freedom Rider group on May 4, 1961. On Mothers Day, when the  bus Thomas was riding on reached Anniston, Alabama, it was set on fire by the Ku Klux Klan. Ten days later Thomas rode from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi. There he was incarcerated at the notorious, Parchman State Prison Farm.

PNC Bank and Jazz 91.9 WCLK celebrate Atlanta's African American Business Leaders-Rashid Nuri.  Nuri was born in Boston, the son of a military officer he attended 14 schools before the family settled in San Diego. Rashid obtained his undergraduate degree from Harvard and master’s degree in Plant/Soil Science from the University of Massachusetts. During his studies Nuri helped to install the first organic community garden in San Diego. Following graduation he moved to Georgia where he managed 13,000 acres of farm land for the Nation of Islam.

PNC Bank and Jazz 91.9 WCLK Celebrates Atlanta’s African American Business Leaders – Pat Lottier was born in Ohio in 1948. Lottier excelled in her studies and received a full scholarship to Johns Hopkins University in 1966. There she studied nursing and met her husband George Lottier. When the family moved to Atlanta, Lottier worked with the Dekalb County Health Department.

PNC Bank and Jazz 91.9 WCLK celebrates Atlanta’s African American Business Leaders – at his death in 1927, Alonzo Franklin Herndon was Atlanta’s wealthiest African American and one of the first black millionaires in the United States. Herndon born in June, 1858 in Walton County, Georgia to Frank Herndon, a white farmer, and Sophenie, his slave.