Robert Theophilus Bess Jr. (February 5, 1889 – after October 1958) was a British-American stockbroker, civil rights activist, public relations manager, and pharmacist.[1] [2] He founded the R. T. Bess Company in New York City, a stock brokerage firm, which was the only black-owned stock brokerage on Wall Street in 1932.[3] [4] He was also the only black stockbroker in New York City the early-1930s.[5] Bess founded the Anti-Discrimination Job League, Inc. in 1936, which worked to fight for law change in New York and nationally. Starting in 1947, he formed Robert T. Bess Assoc., a public relations firm.[6] [7]
Bess was born a British subject in Plaisance, British Guiana (today Guyana), one of three sons of parents Isabella Elizabeth (née Cappell) and Robert T. Bess.[8] One of his brothers, Dr. Edward E. Bess (1895–1956) became president of the local NAACP branch from 1939 to 1940.[9] Bess worked as a pharmacist in his early career in British Guiana between 1911 and 1921. In 1913, he married Ellen Maud Talbot, and together they had 4 children. He was a Methodist and a member of the St. Mark's Methodist Episcopal Church (now St. Mark's United Methodist Church) in New York.[10]
From 1923 until 1933, he was the founding president of the R. T. Bess Company (also known as Robert T. Bess Corp.), a stock brokerage firm, initially located at 206-208 Broadway Street, New York City.[11] [12] [13] He became a naturalized American citizen in 1927.[14]
In 1931, he was taken to court on larceny charges related to the R. T. Bess Company, and he was exonerated of the charges a few months later. In 1932, his company was the only Black-owned stock brokerage on Wall Street, and he was reportedly the only black stockbroker.[15] The company was able to survive the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the resulting economic turmoil by "sticking at the wheel". During this time, Bess employed 9 white and 6 black office workers, and "promoted the interests of the Standard Television and Electric Company", asserting that they "offered an opportunity to colored people to reap millions of dollars in profit".[15]
Bess worked as an organizer for the Consolidated Tenants League, Inc. of Harlem.[16] Starting in 1936, he was the founding president of the Anti-Discrimination Job League, Inc., and the National Anti-Discrimination Movement.[17] Bess and the Anti-Discrimination Job League, Inc. lectured and fought for many years for the passage of laws to protect people from discrimination by insurance companies and employment agencies.[18] The group supported the passage of the Ives-Quinn Act (signed in 1945 by Governor Thomas E. Dewey).[19] [20]
From 1943 to 1950, he worked as a pharmacist in New York City.[21] Starting in 1947, he formed Robert T. Bess Assoc., a public relations firm located at W. 125th Street in West Harlem, New York City.[22]
He authored, "Ethiopia Shall Stretch Forth Her Hands to God" (1949). Bess was the founding president of the Nannie C. Burden Book Lovers Club, Inc.[23] He eulogized Nannie C. Burden on Decoration Day in 1950 at the Frederick Douglass Memorial Park cemetery. In October 1958, he was noted to be scheduled to speak at a public meeting on responding to the possibility of a hydrogen bomb attack.[24]