Ernesta G. Procope

Ernesta Gertrude Procope (nee Forster) (2 September 1923 – 30 November 2021) was an American investment banker and insurance executive who was the head of the largest insurance agency run by a Black woman.[1] Ernesta Gertrude Forster was born on Feb. 9, 1923, in Brooklyn and was raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant. As a child, she played the piano and performed once at Carnegie Hall.[2]

She founded the commercial insurance brokerage firm E. G. Bowman, Inc. in 1953, naming it after her husband who had died the previous year.[3] In 1977, E. G. Bowman became the first African American owned business to be located on Wall Street.[4] She was also the chairperson of the board of directors at Adelphi University. An investigation of the school's finances showed that it was a customer of E. G. Bowman.[5] For this conflict of interest, she, the president, and sixteen other members of the board were removed from their posts.[6]

In 1972, she presented with the Woman of the Year Award by then First Lady, Pat Nixon.[1]

She died on 30 November 2021, in Queens, New York, at the age of 98.[7]


References
  1. Roberts, Sam (9 December 2021). "Ernesta Procope, Pioneering Black Insurance Broker, Dies at 98". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  2. "Ernesta Procope passes". Amsterdam News. 9 December 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  3. Jessie Carney Smith (2012). Black Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events. Visible Ink Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-1-57859-424-5.
  4. Ernesta G. Procope, The HistoryMakers, 13 June 2006. Accessed 5 July 2020.
  5. Lambert, Bruce (24 September 1996). "Chairwoman of Adelphi's Board Is Accused of Using Her Double Role to Advantage". New York Times. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  6. Lambert, Bruce (27 September 2020). "NEW YORK REGENTS OUST 18 TRUSTEES FROM ADELPHI U." New York Times. Retrieved 18 May 2015.
  7. Arnold, Laurence (10 December 2021). "Ernesta Procope, the 'First Lady of Wall Street', Dies at 98". BloombergQuint. Retrieved 10 December 2021.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.