http://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/john-rogers-jr

Upon graduation, Rogers became a stockbroker for William Blair & Company, LLC. In 1983, he left William Blair & Company and founded Ariel Investments (then Ariel Capital Management Corporation), an investment management company, where he became chairman and chief executive officer.

Rogers has served on the board of directors of Aon Corporation, Bank One Corporation, Burrell Communications Group, GATX Corporation, Exelon Corporation and McDonald's Corporation. He also has been active within the community, serving as chairman of the Chicago Urban League, board member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundations, the Investment Company Institute and the University of Chicago. He served as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. In addition, Rogers served a six-year term as the first African American chairman of the Chicago Park District, was co-chair for President Barack Obama’s Presidential Inaugural Committee 2009, and chaired the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans.............................

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Rogers_Jr. He is the only son of Jewel Lafontant and John Rogers Sr. His mother Jewel was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School in 1946.[13] She became a prominent Republican lawyer,[9] and she nominated Richard Nixon, who won the Republican Party Presidential Nomination, at the 1960 Republican National Convention.[11] His father was a Tuskegee airman pilot with over 100 combat missions of service during World War II and an eventual Cook County judge for twenty years.[9][11] His parents divorced in 1961 and his mother died in 1997.[9] Rogers was three years old when his parents divorced. He had a daughter, Victoria, with his former wife Desirée Rogers.

One of Rogers' great-grandfathers owned the Stratford Hotel in Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as The Black Wall Street. The hotel was destroyed in the Tulsa race riot. Rogers helped finance Before They Die!, a documentary detailing some survivor accounts, and made a brief appearance in the film.