Robert Bess

Robert Theophilus Bess Jr. was a British Guiana-born American stockbroker, civil rights activist, public relations manager, and pharmacist. 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. He was also the only black stockbroker in New York City the early-1930s. 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.