Church’s striking and obscure story marked on Beale Street
David L. Acey (right) and his son David L. Acey II hang a banner of Robert R. Church Sr. as Toni Greene (top right) performs during a birthday celebration for Church Tuesday, June 18, 2019. Church, the son of a slave, became one of the first black millionaires in the United States. (Mark Weber/Daily Memphian)
The South's first black millionaire was remembered Tuesday, on what would have been his 180th birthday, with a Beale Street parade where the heart of his business empire once stood.
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Beale Street Jim Strickland LaSimba Gray Robert Church Sr.Bill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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