Alonzo Herndon Stadium

The Alonzo Herndon Stadium opened in 1948 on the campus of Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia. The 15,011-seat stadium is the largest at an institution in the Atlanta University Center and the only one with stands on two sides. The historic venue is named after Alonzo Herndon, a rags-to-riches success story who became Atlanta’s first Black millionaire as founder of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company.

Born into slavery in 1858, in Walton County, Georgia, Alonzo Franklin Herndon was the son of Sophenie, an enslaved woman, and a White father, likely her master, Frank Herndon, who was from a wealthy slaveholding family. Alonzo was one of 25 slaves owned by his father, who never acknowledged paternity of him. In 1865, following the Civil War, 7-year-old Alonzo and his family were emancipated, including his mother, her parents, and his younger brother. He took his presumed father’s surname. As a free man his family was destitute. From a young age, Alonzo worked as a laborer, and a peddler, to help support his family, as only his mother could work in the early years. The family worked mainly as sharecroppers on plantations in Social Circle, Georgia, 40 miles east of Atlanta.

Alonzo Herndon left Social Circle on foot in 1878 at the age of 20 with $11 in savings and approximately one year of formal schooling. He settled in Senoia, Georgia to work as a farmhand and started learning the barbering trade. At the time, many White men used African American barbers and Alonzo developed a good reputation and following. He opened his first barbershop in Jonesboro and expanded it over the years. After working in the shop of another Black barber in Atlanta, he opened three barbershops in the city including one at 66 Peachtree Street that he outfitted with luxurious furnishings. His barbershops had an elite clientele that included judges, businessmen, lawyers, even presidents. One of his large, refined, barbershops serving White customers was damaged by White rioters during the 1906 Atlanta race riot.

Alonzo Herndon, his wife Adrienne, and their son Norris in the early 1900s.

In 1893, Herndon married Adrienne Elizabeth McNeil, a professor at Atlanta University who helped him gain an education and refinement. They had one son together, Norris B. Herndon. After Adrienne died in 1910, Herndon married Jessie Gillespie of Chicago. His son Norris attended Atlanta University and Harvard Business School before entering his father’s company full time. Alonzo Herndon and his family attended the First Congregational Church in Atlanta which had been closely associated with supporting Clark University and other AMA schools.

Alonzo Herndon founded the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, which grew to become the nation’s largest African American-owned insurance company and made him a millionaire. He invested in real estate, and then entered the insurance business by buying a failing mutual aid association in 1905, when Georgia increased the capital requirements for such businesses. Herndon had been approached by several ministers in the community to acquire the company as something for the Black community. He incorporated it as the Atlanta Mutual Insurance Association.

By 1916, the firm was reorganized as a stock company capitalized at $25,000, most of which was purchased by Herndon. In 1922, the company was reorganized as Atlanta Life Insurance Company, and became one of five African American insurance companies at the time to achieve legal reserve status. Atlanta Life’s business thrived, and the company expanded into Alabama, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. Alonzo Herndon died in Atlanta on July 21, 1927, at the age of 69 and was honored by his fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha. His son, Norris B. Herndon, became notable in his own right, expanding his father’s company into an empire and continued to run Atlanta Life until his own death in 1955.

In 1940, Atlanta University deeded its former campus and historic buildings for $1 to Morris Brown, allowing the school to cluster with other HBCUs near Vine City and West End. The move kicked off a building boom. In 1947, construction began on Herndon Stadium on land bequeathed to the college by Alonzo Herndon. One of the first events hosted at the newly built stadium in December 1947 was a post-season game against the Virginia State College Trojans. Herndon Stadium was dedicated at the first home game of the 1948 season when Morris Brown played the Alabama State Hornets on September 24, 1948.

Alonzo Herndon Stadium — A 1948 advertisement for Joe Louis at Herndon Stadium from *The Atlanta Journal*

To help raise funds for the newly built stadium, Morris Brown College invited world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis to Atlanta for an exhibition fight. The event was a complete sellout, and all of the proceeds went to the stadium building fund. In May 1959, Ray Charles played a live concert at Herndon Stadium to a packed crowd.

Morris Brown’s marching band attracted just as many people to Herndon Stadium for the halftime shows as did the football team itself. During the 1996 Summer Olympics, Herndon Stadium hosted the field hockey competitions. It was expanded and renovated ahead of the Olympics. After the games, the stadium continued to host university and other collegiate events.

Morris Brown College hit a low point in 2002 when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools revoked its accreditation over financial mismanagement. Two years later the then-president and her financial aid director were indicted for inflating the enrollment numbers to fraudulently obtain student loans and using that cash to keep the school operating. Losing accreditation meant students could not receive federal financial aid or United Negro College Fund scholarships. The effect was devastating at a school where more than 90 percent of students depended on some sort of financial assistance. Within six months in 2003, enrollment went from 1,800 students to 100. Morris Brown discontinued their athletics program in 2003, and Herndon Stadium was left neglected and in disrepair.

From 2001 until 2003, Alonzo Herndon Stadium was also the home to the former Atlanta Beat women’s soccer club of the WUSA league. The stadium was used during filming of the 2006 movie We Are Marshall as the stand-in for the demolished Fairfield Stadium in Huntington, West Virginia. In 2014, Herndon Stadium was one of the properties sold by the college to counter its debt. The sale sparked controversy related to historic property deeds and agreements about land-use between Morris Brown College and the members of Atlanta University Center. In 2023, it was announced that city leaders and a senior advisor for the FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in Atlanta in 2026, were in talks of restoring Herndon Stadium as a state-of-the-art soccer arena.