Dinner party with Norman O. Houston (3rd from left), and John A. Somerville (right) seated at a dining table with a standing woman, another woman and two other men. Dr. John Somerville, born in Jamaica, was the first black graduate of USC School of Dentistry (1907). He married Vada Jetmore Watson (1912), who also became a dentist. He built the Somerville Hotel (1928), was instrumental in the founding of the Los Angeles chapter of NAACP (1914), and served on the Police Commission 1949-1953. Norman O. Houston was the president of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, at one time the largest black-owned business west of the Mississippi. Photographer's stamp on back of photo: Rothschild / Photo / Los Angeles / DU. 7-2284
Type
image
Identifier
uclalsc_1889_b14_f10_020a.tif ark:/21198/z1bs099p
Subject
African American civil rights workers Insurance executives African American dentists Houston, Norman O. (Norman Oliver), 1893-1981 Somerville, John Alexander, 1881-1973
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