Miles G. Amos, Pharm.D., was one of the nation’s most influential Black pharmacists, civic leaders, and one of the first African American men elected to hold public office in Atlanta since Reconstruction. Amos was born into a family whose legacy as an example of Black professional advancement was already established, thanks in part to his uncle Moses Amos, the first Black licensed pharmacist in Georgia. Miles Amos extended this tradition of Black entrepreneurship through more than forty years of service as the sole proprietor of the Amos Drug Store on Hunter Street, as well as civic engagement.
With vocational craftsmanship in carpentry and additional work as a Pullman porter, Amos worked his way through college at Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio. He joined Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity through Wilberforce’s chapter in 1921. Upon graduation, he went to Cincinnati College of Pharmacy, where he graduated in 1923. He returned to Atlanta to apprentice under his uncle while sharpening his entrepreneurship. His papers from Wilberforce show a young man engaged in civic responsibility and disciplined study.
Throughout the mid-20th century, Amos became deeply involved in Atlanta’s political and civic networks. In 1953, he was one of the first Black men to be elected to public office in Atlanta, elected to the City Executive Committee from Atlanta’s Third Ward. His political influence as a trusted intermediary between Black communities and city leadership was documented extensively through correspondence with mayors, aldermen, and other political figures in Atlanta. Moreover, he engaged with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Amos frequently noted that his uncle’s Gate City Drug store did double duty as a pharmacy and as a community gathering spot for notable Black figures such as Booker T. Washington. In keeping with this tradition, the Amos drugstore also was a business and community hub where civic events, neighborhood gatherings, and the everyday life of both the Auburn Avenue and Hunter Street Black communities, Black business thoroughfares in Atlanta, provided an avenue for the city’s Black east-to-west migration of Black civic Atlanta.
Miles Amos passed away in his sleep on January 21, 1995, at the age of 97 years old. He was buried at Southview Cemetery. A member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, he was remembered as a model for Black communities. His life and legacy spanned more than five decades of actively shaping Atlanta’s Black entrepreneurial class, political landscape, and civic endeavors.
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