
07/30/2023
This is black excellence!!
“Junius George Groves (April 12, 1859 – August 17, 1925) was an American farmer and entrepreneur remembered as one of the wealthiest black Americans of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Known as the "Potato King of the World" by 1902, Groves optimized potato growth methods, out-producing anyone else in the world to that point. His vast financial success—analyzed further in Booker T. Washington's The Negro in Business (1907)—was utilized to help combat racism by providing economic opportunities for other black Americans.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junius_George_Groves
Despite being born a slave, Junius G. Groves and his wife, Matilda, became one of the wealthiest African American couples in the late 1800s.
They invested in thousands of acres of land in Kansas and Junius made a name for himself as a potato grower, producing as many as 721,500 bushels in one year, way more than any other farmer which earned him the title of “Potato King of the World.”
He also operated a general store, maintained several orchards, and had investments in various mining and banking interests.