Early Life
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.”
Read more about this topic: Samuel B. Fuller
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