# Frank L. Gillespie

Founded Liberty Life Insurance Company in Chicago in 1919, capitalizing it with investments drawn from the Bronzeville community. The company offered life insurance policies to Black Chicagoans at a time when most major white-owned insurers either refused Black applicants or charged them actuarially discriminatory premium rates. Liberty Life merged with two other Black-owned insurance companies in 1929 to form Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company, one of the largest Black-owned corporations in the United States by the 1940s, with assets exceeding US$40 million at its mid-century peak. Supreme Liberty Life employed hundreds of Black professionals in underwriting, sales, and administration; John H. Johnson, the future founder of Johnson Publishing Company and Ebony magazine, was employed there as a clerk in the early 1940s. Gillespie died in 1925, six years after the company's founding.

- Region: 773
- Affiliation: Liberty Life Insurance / Supreme Liberty Life
- Industry: Life Insurance
- URL: https://xecon.dev/773/profiles/people/frank-l-gillespie
- Updated: 2026-05-27

## Sources

1. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_L._Gillespie)
2. [Gillespietech](https://www.gillespietech.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=192352&type=d&pREC_ID=501665)
3. [Blackhistoryheroes](https://www.blackhistoryheroes.com/2010/02/supreme-liberty-life-insurance-co.html)