CHICAGO, April 3 (UPI) -- Alvin Boutte Sr. one of the country's most influential black businessmen, has died in his home in Hazel Crest, Ill., the Chicago Sun-Times reported. He was 82.
The cause of death was not listed.
Boutte was born in Lake Charles, La., and earned a degree in pharmacy from Xavier University. When he later moved to Chicago, the profession gave him a foothold in the business community and he started by owning and operating his own drugstore.
"He was alert to business opportunity and success, and he was tremendously ambitious," the description of Boutte in African-American Business Leaders says.
He became acquainted with George Johnson, purveyor of Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen hair products, and the two started the Independence Bank, which became the largest black-owned bank in the United States.
Independence was the first African-American-owned bank to purchase a substantial white-owned bank when it acquired Drexel National Bank, the newspaper said.
Boutte was a major player in Chicago's ground-breaking black business community that also included John Johnson, publisher of Jet and Ebony magazines.
"When people talk about Chicago being the mecca for black business, it was because of that generation of African-American leaders who showed the way," said John Rogers, chief executive officer of Ariel Investments.
When Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights campaign needed funds, Boutte stepped in to help, organizing a fund raising effort among Chicago's black business community.
"He invited Dr. King to Chicago … he was fundamental to those movements for justice," said the Rev. Jesee Jackson. Boutte is said to have learned perseverance from his father, whose efforts to vote were rebuffed in the south year after year.
He never got to vote, Boutte said. But he never stopped trying, either.
In Chicago, Boutte and two friends, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe Sr., were turned down by a country club they were attempting to join.
On paper, that would be a country club turning down one of Chicago's most influential business leaders and two Olympic medalists, one of whom (Metcalfe) went on to become a U.S. congressman.
Boutte would not take no for an answer. Eventually, the country club relented, but asked them to play golf either very early or very late so the club's other members wouldn't see them.
"They had to be the first ones to tee off and they had to tee off in the dark" said a friend, Glenn Reedus.
Still, they had made their point -- "They were there," the newspaper said.
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