How One of Baseball's Trailblazers Really Became BMW's 1st Black Dealer, Part II

Here's Part II of  the BMW story, revealing how Hank Aaron became the first African-American to be awarded a BMW franchise, as noted in the book entitled The Last Hero: A Life of Hank Aaron....... To read excerpts from Part I, click here.

But while industry insiders don't necessarily begrudge Aaron's accomplishment, some question the wisdom of appointing a high-profile franchiser with little no experience.

"Quite frankly, we were surprised," says Sheila Vaden-Williams,(former) executive director of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers. "Especially since we've provided BMW with names of established dealers with an interest in the Atlanta market."

Undaunted, Henry almost immediately recognized how powerful an asset the Hank Aaron name was. He had impressed skeptics by choosing a location, Union City (a city highly populated with African-Americans), that had no previous client base. He hadn't cherry-picked a ripe location, but he was determined to build a business. In the first twelve months, Hank Aaron BMW raked in $32.9 million in sales. Fans wanted to be associated with Hank Aaron, and for every new BMW he sold, he gave buyers a Hank Aaron-signed baseball. Hank Aaron Toyota followed (located in McDonough and Griffin, GA. And there was a Honda store, too.) As did Hank Aaron Range Rover (and Jaguar located in Augusta, GA.)

Henry was vindicated, but some of his people seethed at what they considered to be more jealousy on the part of fellow professional blacks, the crab-in-a-barrel mentality that often stifled success. "There were some black folk that he knows who were calling him 'Uncle Tom' behind his back, and he wanted to prove them wrong,''Allan Tanenbaum said. "He wasn't trying to prove anything to the white man; he wanted to prove it to other black people. I really resented that."

And it was a family affair. The kids never went into baseball, except for Lary, who became a scout with the (Atlanta) Braves. Henry Aaron, Jr., became part of the business, running the Toyota dealership. And Henry's son-in-law Victor Haydel oversaw most of the company.

"Why was I chosen?" Aaron said in an interview in the magazine Black Enterprise (Aaron was named Dealer of the Year in 2004 by the magazine). "Just because I had been a baseball player didn't mean I didn't know how to run a business. I have 17 successful fast-food restaurants with Church's, Popeye's, and Arby's. They knew I has some experience running a franchise operation. I accepted the challenge that I could put minorities in charge and run a dealership."

When the business press came to him, it found a different Henry from the one the sporting press had been accustomed to. He was still not particularly talkative, but the seemed to regard his business success with heightened pride. Perhaps the reason was that because he had been so comfortable in the sports world, he had enjoyed the challenge of succeeding in business. It was the success that allowed the opportunity to disabuse whites of the notion that blacks could not succeed in business. He found himself more engaged with sports figures who made the transition to real business ventures (as opposed to lending their names to a product and leaving the daily operations to others). He was particularly impressed with the basketball player Magic Johnson, who had parlayed his on-court success into a financial empire of banks, movie theaters, and restaurants. Johnson did not merely own the local movie theater; he had used his clout to appeal to corporations to invest in areas heavily populated by African-Americans. Henry had done the same with his fast-food chains, but at an upscale operation such as BMW would require a different approach. The result was that, as Magic Johnson had done, Henry traded off his name to create scholarships and internships in the auto industry. Three years after entering a new business venture, BMW had (with a significant nudge from Henry) launched its first minority training program.

Editor's note: After seven years of Aaron being in the auto business and making a boat load of money, the baseball pioneer exited the business to focus on his restaurants. There was an attempt by Aaron to sale the business to an African-American-owed dealer, but due to what is believed to be financial complications, the deal fell through. However, one of Aaron's Toyota stores did end up in the hands of an African American for a short stint. Just think: ten years ago there were no African-American owned BMW dealers. Currently, there are nine black BMW dealers, according to the National Association of Minority Dealers latest census.

This excerpt of how Henry Aaron became BMW's first black dealer just 10 years ago was reprinted from the recently release book, The Last Hero: A Life of Hank Aaron, which was authored by, ESPN sports writer and NPR correspondent, Howard Bryant. According to Bryant, he interviewed Aaron and a host of others for this insightful book. To learn more about Aaron's unauthorized biography, click here to listen to this NPR interview with the author.