Conyers, Nathan G. 1932–

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Nathan G. Conyers 1932–

Automobile dealer

Nathan Conyers worked as a successful attorney for a number of years, but couldn’t resist the desire to become an entrepreneur. He went on to own Detroit’s only African American-owned dealership and the oldest African American-owned dealership in the United States. From his parents, Conyers learned to be self-sufficient, responsible, and committed. John Sr. and Lucille Conyers also stressed the merits of personal and professional success to Conyers and his older brother John Jr., who went on to become a U.S. Congressman. Conyers is known as a standout among African American businessmen, and has received many professional accolades.

Conyers graduated from Wayne State University law school in 1959, after a stint in the army. As an attorney, he worked for the Small Business Administration and Veteran’s Administration until he set up his own private practice from 1965 to 1969. He also served as a special assistant to the Attorney General for the State of Michigan. In 1969, he became a senior partner at Keith, Conyers, Anderson, Brown& Wahl, P.C., but decided to become a businessman in 1970.

A Good Time for Business

During the early 1970s, Detroiters were trying to rebuild the city from the devastation of the 1967 riots, and many of Detroit’s white residents and business owners were fleeing. Ford Motor Company Chairman Henry Ford also wanted to increase the number of minority-owned dealerships in the company. Conyers’s timing was perfect when Hetche Motors, a white-owned Ford dealership, went up for sale just as Ford Motor Company was looking to increase minority involvement. Conyers told Black Enterprise in an interview that he imagined a Ford executive in 1969 saying to himself, “I’ll put a black dealer there, and they’ll sell cars like hotcakes.” Conyers was determined to become that dealer.

With $400,000 in capital and financing from Ford, Nathan and John Conyers Jr. bought Hetche Motors in 1970 and renamed it Conyers Ford. The dealership became Ford’s fourth African American-owned dealership, and Michigan’s first African American-owned dealership. Conyers credited his late father with giving he

At a Glance…

Born Nathan George Conyers July 3, 1932 in De troit, Ml; son of John Sr. and Lucille Conyers; married Diana Callie Howze, 1956; children: Nancy, Ellen, Susan, Steven, Peter. Education: Wayne State University, L.L.B., 1959. Military service: U.S. Army, 1953–55.

Career: Closing attorney, Small Business Administration, 1963–64; closing attorney, Veteran’s Administration, 1964–65; attorney, private practice, 1965–69; special assistant, Attorney General, State of Michigan, 1967–70; partner, Keith, Conyers, Anderson, Brown & Wahls, P.C., 1969; president, Conyers Riverside Ford, 1970-; president, Supreme lord, 1991–93.

Selected awards: Commitment to Excellence Award, Howard University School of Business and Public Administration; Business Achievement Award, Booker T. Washington Business Association, 1990; Dealership of the Year, Black Enterprise, 1995; 25 Year Award, Ford Motor Company, 1996; North American Customer Excellence Award, Ford Motor Company, 1998; Time Magazine Quality Dealer Award, 1999.

Selected memberships: NAACP; Y.M.C.A.; American Civil Liberties Union; Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce; Greater Detroit Area Hospital Council; Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan; Diversitech.

Addresses: Office— Conyers Riverside Ford, 1833 E. Jefferson, Detroit, Ml 48207.

and his brother the incentive to own their own business. “He challenged us from early childhood that one day, regardless of what we were doing, wherever we might be, we were all going to come together and create a family business,” Conyers told Black En terprise. Nathan and John Jr. were both successful attorneys at the time. A coin toss decided that Nathan would run the dealership. “John Jr. pulled out a coin and said, Til tell you what. Let’s flip and see who’s going to leave what they’re doing,’” Conyers related to Black Enterprise. Nathan Conyers became sole owner of the dealership in 1979.

Conyers admitted in an interview with Black Enterprise that the time had been right for an African Americanowned dealership because government bodies were supportive of minority entrepreneurs. By the late 1980s, African Americans were encountering greater resist-ence. “A number of bankers feel that life is just more comfortable not dealing with blacks,” Conyers told writer Faye Rice in an interview with Fortune. During the late 1980s, 90 percent of the participants in Ford Motor Company’s dealer development program were African Americans. This statistic indicated that African American-owned dealerships were getting started mostly with the manufacturer’s help, not with loans from outside lenders. However, Conyers told Black Enterprise, adversity can be a positive incentive for minorities. “If you increase the odds,” he remarked, “it increases the will to succeed.”

Conyers watched with dismay as the neighborhood around his West Grand Boulevard dealership deteriorated. His clientele was almost exclusively African American, and consisted of people who knew his family. This loyal customer base and a strong commitment to the city of Detroit contributed greatly to Conyers’s success. In 1984, Conyers moved his dealership to the edge of downtown Detroit, near the Detroit River, and renamed it Conyers Riverside Ford. After an awkward period of adjustment to the new environment, Conyers tailored his sales staff and marketing to downtown office workers and commuters. He promoted the merits of his service department, figuring that if people trusted the dealership to fix their old cars, they’d feel confident buying their new ones there. He also sought out government contracts, which aided the company during tough economic times.

Conyers is known for his commitment to his community and to education. He provides financial support to his old neighborhood grade school, and gave local community college students a crash course in minority entrepreneurship. “Commitment goes beyond a dollar,” he told Karen Dumas in a Michigan Citizen interview. “Although financial contributions to organizations are imperative to the community of their efforts, it is equally important that one get involved with attacking those same issues on a daily and ongoing basis.”

A Family Affair

Conyers Riverside Ford is a family-owned and operated business. All of Conyers’s five children are involved in the dealership. His eldest son Steven is general sales manager, daughter Nancy and son Peter are business managers, and daughter Susan is a former manager. His daughter Ellen, an attorney, handles the dealership’s contracts and collections and looks forward to owning her own dealership. Conyers is extremely proud of his dealership’s success. “Pride is an understatement,” Conyers told Jourdan C. Harper of the Michigan Chronicle. “This is the real African-American dream—and a realistic one for all to embrace and realize for themselves.”

Conyers appreciates the importance of African Americans handing down family businesses to the next generation. “The issue of succession is a whole new issue for black businesses now that we have them in some number,” he said in an interview with Black Enterprise. He also has a plan in place that qualifies one of his children to be on the dealer agreements “so that if something happens to me, they could step into the business.” Conyers told Black Enterprise he hopes one day that each of the Conyers children will have a dealership of their own, creating a family-owned string of dealerships.

Conyers’s commitment to the African American community extends beyond his own family and automobile dealership. He has served as a mentor for other African Americans, many of whom are women, who left jobs at Conyers Riverside Ford to head their own dealerships. “I would not be a dealer today were it not for Nathan Conyers,” Wendell Barron, president of the Michigan Automobile Dealers Association and owner of Campus Ford in Okemos, Michigan, told the Detroit Free Press.

Accolades for Conyers

When Conyers Riverside Ford appeared on the first Black Enterprise magazine “BE 100” list of the nation’s largest African American businesses, it was one of 13 automobile dealerships. Twenty-five years later, Conyers is the only automobile dealer to have been selected for every annual list, and is the only one of the original 13 dealerships that is still in business. Another media mogul tipped her hat to Conyers in 1998. Television talk show host Oprah Winfrey celebrated her birthday by inviting him onto her show to give away an F-150 Ford truck. Conyers has received commendations from former President Jimmy Carter, Detroit Mayor Dennis W. Archer, and the Detroit City Council. Ford Motor Company awarded him its prestigious 25 Year Award on the 25th anniversary of his dealership. He also was given keys to the cities of Atlanta, New York, Chicago and Detroit. In 1990, Conyers accepted the Businessman of the Year award from Detroit’s Booker T. Washington Business Association (BTWBA). BTWBA President Nicholas Hood III told writer Michael Goodin of Cram’s Detroit Business that the award “is a way of expressing our support and encouragement” for Conyers. In 1999, he was selected from more than 20,500 dealers nationwide to be awarded Time magazine’s Quality Dealer Award. Later that year, Conyers became the owner of a Jaguar Motorcar franchise, becoming only the second African American to own a Jaguar dealership.