With a 100-day countdown and a summer-long series of special events setting the stage, this uniquely American company's countdown events culminated with a festive Centennial Gala at the Hyatt Regency ballroom on September 21, the exact date Alonzo Franklin Herndon founded the company in 1905.

The centennial festivities also included a historic narrative depicting the life of Alonzo Herndon and Atlanta Life, a Founder's Natal Day Celebration & Parade, an art symposium and a black-tie gala. "This is a very exciting time for us right now," says Henrietta Antoinin, vice president of public relations. "The Centennial Celebration is a celebration of Atlanta, a celebration of our ancestors, a celebration of art, and a celebration of achievement."

It is the quintessential American story with a uniquely African-American flavor. Company founder Herndon was born into slavery in 1858 near the town of Social Circle in Walton County, Georgia. With only one year of formal education, he arrived in Atlanta in 1882, working his way to the top of the city's barbering trade, eventually owning and operating three barbershops--one of them considered the biggest and most elegant in the country. With his significant success as a barber, and with his real estate investments, he founded the company, which became a household name to Black families in 17 states.

When Alonzo Herndon died in 1927 at the age of 69, Norris Bumstead Herndon, his son who held a master's degree in business administration from Harvard University, assumed the presidency of Atlanta Life Insurance.

Under Norris' leadership, the company experienced its greatest period of expansion. A lifelong bachelor, he continued the family's tradition of philanthropy and in 1950 established the Alonzo F. and Norris B. Herndon Foundation, a charitable trust that operates the Herndon Home, a museum and memorial to the Alonzo Herndon Family. The house is a National Historic Landmark. Norris B. Herndon died in 1977.

The company has always had a strong civic involvement and presence in the fabric of the communities it served and through its pivotal role in the underpinnings of the Civil Rights Movement. For instance, it was quietly responsible for providing bail money for Martin Luther King Jr. and for countless students arrested during the sit-in movement through a company-created fund called the Atlanta Life Family Support. That tradition continued under former president Jesse Hill Jr., when the company experienced its most profitable years.

Current president and CEO Ronald D. Brown says the company will continue that activist tradition by building on the principle of a "double bottom line" at the company. Brown, in a stirring speech at the Centennial Gala, told the crowd that the hurricane disasters this year provide an opportunity "to really step up as a nation and to discuss what some of the issues are with race and class in our society. It's time for us to now send out our own SOS, not as a distress signal, but as a signal that says it's time for us to save ourselves." In an earlier interview, Brown said, "We have to put as much emphasis on the social bottom line as we do the profit bottom line."

Founder Herndon's stunning 100-year business achievement began modestly with his $140 purchase of the ailing Atlanta Benevolent and Protective Association in 1905. With this acquisition and the reorganization of the Royal Mutual Insurance Association and the National Laborer's Protective Union, Herndon formed the Atlanta Mutual Insurance Association. By the end of the first year of operation, Atlanta Mutual had grown substantially, operating 23 offices in Georgia, employing 211 persons, and making more than $180,000 in the sale of industrial insurance, which was low-cost, low-benefit-sick-and-death coverage for low-income customers.

What a difference 100 years makes. Today, the company is called the Atlanta Life Financial Group and operates in 17 states with more than $200 million in assets, and it is the largest Black-owned stockholder insurance company in America. Operating on historic "Sweet Auburn" Avenue in Atlanta, the company has more than 2 million consumers, $16 billion of life insurance in force, and it is the No. 1 African-American reinsurer of group life benefits.

Brown, who is only the sixth president in the company's history, says Atlanta Life's corporate success began with the founders. "Some would call them frugal, but I would call them extremely safe with their own money and the company's money," Brown says.

Playing it fiscally safe has played well for the company's history--and its future. "We have a great history and an even more promising future," says Bill Clement, chairman of Atlanta Life's board of directors. "We are eager to build on our storied legacy of promoting and preserving Black achievement, Black entrepreneurship and community stewardship," he says. "Investing [in] the community we serve while providing excellent products and services to our consumers has been our key to success. We will continue to operate and expand under this model into the next 100 years."