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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
Location/County: Charleston, Kanawha
July 24, 2014
On Thursday, July 24, 2014, Charles H. James III will present “African American Life in Charleston: A Personal Perspective Part II” in the Archives and History Library in the Culture Center in Charleston. The program, which is the second of The Block Speakers Series, will begin at 6:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
A native of Charleston, James will discuss his family’s history in Charleston and the Kanawha Valley from 1865 to the present. His great-grandfather started a retail produce business, later the wholesaler C. H. James & Co., in Charleston in 1883.
Charles H. James III graduated with honors from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1981 and earned his masters’ degree in Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1985. He has served as the Chairman and CEO of C. H. James & Co. since 1988. The company celebrated its 130th anniversary in 2013 and has been recognized as one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the United States. James represents the fourth generation of his family to own and operate the business. Under his leadership, C. H. James & Co. grew from a local food distributor in southern West Virginia to a leading international supplier to the U.S. government and multinational foodservice clients. In 1992, C. H. James & Co. was named “Company of the Year” by Black Enterprise magazine and has been listed numerous times in the magazine’s annual BE 100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses.
For additional information, call (304) 558-0230.