Henry G. Parks Jr.

Henry Green Parks Jr. was born on September 29, 1916, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Henry Green Parks Sr., who worked as a hotel bartender and later as a wine steward in a private club, and Gainelle Esther Williams of Birmingham, Alabama. While Henry was still a child, the family moved north to Dayton, Ohio, where he was raised and educated in the city's public schools.

Parks studied at Ohio State University, graduating with honors in 1939 as a marketing major; while there he became the first Black member of the university's swim team. He began his career as a sales representative for the Pabst Brewing Company, then in 1942 became a partner in the New York public relations firm W. B. Graham and Associates. After several ventures, he invested in a Baltimore sausage maker before striking out on his own.

In 1951 Parks founded the Parks Sausage Company in Baltimore, beginning with only a handful of employees and old recipes he had learned. Through relentless work he built it into a multimillion-dollar enterprise with roughly 300 employees, a modern processing plant, and annual sales exceeding fourteen million dollars, its "More Parks Sausages, Mom!" advertisements becoming nationally known. In 1969 the company made a public offering of its stock on the over-the-counter market — a first for a Black-owned American business.

Parks also served on the Baltimore City Council in the 1960s, advocating for public accommodations and fair treatment. He died on April 24, 1989, of complications from Parkinson's disease. May the memory of Henry Green Parks Jr. — the pioneer who opened the markets to those who came after him — be honored and forever kept.