Victory

For "his outstanding achievements, modesty, exemplary character and inspiration to the Negro youth of America," Fisticuffer Joe Louis was last week made a director of Victory Mutual Life

Herbert Hoover's name also carries weight.

Insurance Co., only Negro life company licensed to do business under New York State's strict insurance laws. Engineered by his able, honest managers, the election of the world's best black boxer to the Victory board was not primarily dictated by a desire for the benefit of his business judgment, any more than was Herbert Hoover's election to the board of New York Life. Among certain groups of U. S. insurance prospects both names carry considerable weight.

Founded in 1924 by a Chicago Negro named Anthony Overton, Victory had an uninspiring record until a few years ago when control moved East to New York City's Harlem. Founder Overton, who made a tidy fortune selling cosmetics, bleaching lotions and hair straighteners to his fellow blackamoors, also ran a bank, Chicago's defunct Douglass National, only national bank ever chartered by Negroes. Then regarded as the No. U.S. Negro financier, Overton sluiced a considerable amount of Victory's funds into stock in his ailing bank. Upshot was that Victory lost its licenses in a number of States, whereupon Overton hastily put it in receivership.

Meantime Clilan Bethany Powell, famed Harlem roentgenologist, had become a Victory director, hoping that the company would at last turn out to be a thoroughly sound Negro insurance company. Flourishing on the fact that big white life companies discriminate against black risks because of the higher mortality rate among Negroes, the Negro insurance company has, on the. whole, had a sorry record. It was largely through the efforts of Director Powell and his friends, that Victory had been able to enter the rich insurance market of Harlem. After Victory went into receivership, Director Powell succeeded in working out a reorganization plan, converting Victory from a stock company to a mutual company owned by its policy holders.

Victory's general overhead was reduced 44%, agency overhead cut from 36% to 9%. RFC loans of $78,000 were paid off, premium income upped 57%, surplus increased by $60,000. When some of these accomplishments were reported to Chicago's Federal District Judge Evan Evans, who had furnished Director Powell no small amount of judicial cooperation, he declared: "We have overthrown a defective organization and established a new one, which is going to make this the best and most successful colored insurance company in the U. S." Today Victory has some $8,000,000 in outstanding policies, $700,000 in assets.

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