Founder of the Motown music empire, Berry Gordy was for many years America's most successful black businessman.

Gordy was one of eight children from a middle-class family in Detroit; his father, Berry Gordy, Sr., was a contractor and entrepreneur. The elder Gordy's gospel of achievement and competition found a respectful audience in his son, but Berry Gordy, Jr., always sought wealth rather than merely middle-class success. Gordy dropped out of high school to pursue a career in boxing and fought in 19 mostly successful professional bouts, but he quit the ring after concluding that he would never be great. Shortly afterwards he was drafted, serving in Korean War combat.

Returning to Detroit in 1953, Gordy started a jazz record store with borrowed money. It failed after a short time, and he next took an assembly line job at a Ford plant. Gordy's sisters had by then...