Feb 28
Honoring an African-American Insurance Institution
Monday October 16th was the 108th Founder’s Day celebration at N.C. Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Durham, North Carolina. Highlighting the annual event was the keynote speech by educator and author Stedman Graham, author of two New York Times bestsellers.
The firm, which started in 1898 and was reorganized in 1900 by founders John Merrick and Aaron Moore, has grown into a company with more than $12 billion of insurance in force. The company, which has more than 100 employees at its Durham headquarters, is the largest black-owned life insurance company in the country.
In his speech, Graham said he has had to work hard to make people see him as more than the longtime companion of Oprah Winfrey. As a young man, he faced the task of overcoming the low self-esteem from his early years growing up in Whitesboro, N.J.
In previous interviews, Graham has said it was pressure from his romance with Winfrey, which dates back to the early 1980s, that helped push him to succeed on a number of levels. He has done so by writing 10 books including the two bestsellers, and by building a successful management and marketing consulting company, S. Graham & Associates in Chicago.
Graham’s connection to N.C. Mutual extends beyond his father, who was an agent for the life insurance company. Graham traces his heritage back to the Spaulding family that includes the late C.C. Spaulding, who served as N.C. Mutual’s president for almost three decades. “This is a full circle moment,” Graham told the crowd of 400 at the beginning of his talk.
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February 28th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
To be honest I didn\’t know of any black owned life insurance companies, let alone a company as large, successful and enduring as N.C. Mutual Life. I would imagine they are quite well-known and celebrated in North Carolina and surrounding areas. Stedman Graham is not the first famous person I\’ve heard about who\’s father was an insurance agent. Seems to not be too uncommon.