John Stith Pemberton
The moral of this article is the importance of generational wealth building (and financial literacy) which is severely lacking in black community, mainly due to the traditional “job” culture that have been passed down through generations. Typically when the breadwinner dies in a black family, posterity starts all over. This is not entirely the same in White, Jews and Asian household as in the case of Asa Candler, one of the most astute business men to walk the surface of the earth.
According to Business Insider’s December 2013 article, Pemberton who became addicted to morphine after been injured in the Battle of Columbus, sought a substitute for his morphine addiction which led to his invention of an elixir in 1885.
The elixir in form of a tonic was formed in Columbus, Georgia. The tonic comprised African Kola nuts for caffeine extract and French wine.
When the alcohol prohibition law passed in 1886, he pivoted to producing a non-alcoholic version called Coca-Cola which at the time remedied minor ailments like drug addiction, indigestion, impotence and headaches.
Pemberton who bequeathed the brand name to his son Charles, allowed two other investors the franchisee rights to continue to make Coca-Cola for a fee $1, 450. One of them named as Asa Griggs Candler.
Asa Candler
When Charles Pemberton dies suddenly of a drug overdose in 1890, Candler pre-empted to offer $300 (three hundred dollars) cash to his surviving widow at the funeral to take full control of the brand name Coca-Cola.
She agreed to the deal and from that point, it was game over.
For total of $1, 750 (rumoured $2,300), Candler purchased full ownership of the beverage brand which his family controls to this day.
So here is a man (Candler) who did not create Coca-Cola, yet positioned himself to take full ownership of the company within 5 years of its inception.
Like wealth, poverty is passed down through generations because children are a product of their environment. They emulate what they see.
As Warren Buffet puts it, “Wealth is simple the transfer of power from the short sighted to those capable of delaying gratification”
It is a game of “pay now, play later”. It is okay to have a job but if there are no intentions of building a business, owning real estate or invest in stock trading, your lineage will never be truly financially free.
No matter how much you make, you cannot pass down a job through generations.