Remembering Herman Cain: Watch Touching Doc Film Tribute to Conservative Icon
This article was sponsored by Tolli/Cain Entertainment.
Conservative commentator, business leader and former presidential candidate Herman Cain would have turned 75 on Sunday.
He became one of the many casualties in America and the world’s ongoing battle against COVID-19, dying of complications from the virus in July.
The Georgia native was born on Dec. 13, 1945, just months after the end of World War II.
Cain’s parents — Luther (a barber, janitor and chauffeur) and Lenora (a domestic worker) — had two big dreams for their family: to buy a house and to see their two sons graduate from college.
Through hard work, both dreams came to pass.
The documentary film “From Poor to CEO: The Incredible Journey of Herman Cain” chronicles the improbable rise of the American icon from a lower-income, working-class family in Atlanta to CEO of Godfather’s Pizza to chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City to president of the National Restaurant Association and later to candidate for president of the United States.
The movie has a personal, warm feel to it, interspersed with that trademark Herman Cain humor.
The media personality shares with director Barry Tolli in the film that his parents laid the foundation for his future success.
“I saw work ethic. I didn’t have to be taught work ethic, I saw it firsthand, and it had a big impression on me,” Cain said.
His father worked three jobs, so he could buy a home for their family.
“I’m very proud of my dad, he set the example,” Cain said. “And to show you how God works, when I was 12 years old, one of dad’s jobs was a janitor at a Pillsbury biscuit plant in Atlanta.”
“He would let me work on Friday night and Saturday night because I didn’t have school,” he recounted.
“Umpteen years later, I’m vice president of technology for the Pillsbury company! Go figure. Did you think I knew I was going to go from assistant janitor to vice president of technology? No! God knew it.”
Luther, who had grown up working on his family’s farm in Tennessee, eventually became a chauffeur and personal valet to Robert W. Woodruff, chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company.
“From Poor to CEO” uses a mixture of archival footage, animations, interviews and footage of visits to the locations that were key in Cain’s life, including the home his father bought.
That home was later the location of Cain and his wife Gloria’s wedding reception.
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Tolli, who worked with Cain on a daily online program for The Western Journal, believes his former boss lived the quintessential American life.
“He represents everything that’s good about America,” the filmmaker told Fox News in a recent interview while promoting the documentary along with Cain’s daughter, Melanie Cain Gallo.
“He obviously grew up in the segregated South, and so he experienced all of the things that we hear about from those times, but he made it his work to overcome those barriers,” Gallo said.
“And when he would face a challenge, he would pray and he would work and he would focus and use that to drive him past whatever barriers that would come his way.”
You can watch the incredible journey of Herman Cain by clicking here.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
