Business & brands / City history
Berry Gordy Sr.
1888–1978 · businessman, patriarch of the Gordy family
"Pops" Gordy, the Georgia-born businessman who moved his family to Detroit in 1922 and whose children built Motown.
- Born
Georgia- Died
- Birth name
- Berry Gordy
- Also known as
- Pops Gordy · Berry Gordy II
- Detroit years
- 1922–1978
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Berry Gordy II, known as "Pops", grew up in Georgia and left for Detroit in the early 1920s, drawn by jobs in the booming auto economy and pushed by the racism of the South; his wife Bertha and their first three children followed. In Detroit the couple ran several businesses: a painting and plastering company, a construction firm, and a grocery store named after Booker T. Washington, while Bertha co-founded the Friendship Mutual Life Insurance Company. Their eight children grew up in the city, and most of them worked at Motown, the company founded in 1959 by their seventh child, Berry Gordy Jr. The family's own savings fund, the Ber-Berry Co-op, provided the loan that started it. Pops Gordy mentored several Motown acts in his later years. After his death in 1978, Motown released the tribute single "Pops, We Love You" by Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder.
Highlights
- Moved from Georgia to Detroit in the early 1920s
- Ran a painting business, construction firm and grocery store in Detroit
- Father of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. and seven other children
- Honored by the Motown tribute single "Pops, We Love You"