Samuel B. Fuller

Samuel B. "S.B." Fuller (June 4, 1905 – October 24, 1988) was an American entrepreneur. He was founder and president of the Fuller Products Company, publisher of the New York Age and Pittsburgh Courier, head of the South Side Chicago NAACP, president of the National Negro Business League, and a prominent black Republican.

S.B. Fuller's life was an illustration of business success and self-help. His company gave inspiration and training to countless aspiring entrepreneurs and future leaders, including John H. Johnson of Johnson Publishing, George Ellis Johnson founder of Johnson Products, and Dr. T.R.M. Howard.

Fuller (no relation to Alfred C. Fuller, founder of the Fuller Brush Company) was born into rural poverty to a sharecropper family in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana in 1905. The family's poverty was such that he had to drop out of school in sixth grade. At nine he was selling products door-to-door and gaining experience as an entrepreneur. At fifteen his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Two years later his mother would pass away leaving seven children to fend for themselves.

After going to Chicago in 1928, Fuller worked in a wide range of menial jobs, eventually rising to become manager of a coal yard. Subsequent to his employment in the coal yard, he gained employment as an insurance representative for Commonwealth Burial Association, an African-American firm. Although he had a secure job during the depression, he nevertheless struck out on his own preferring "freedom" to "security."

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