Mr. Fuller, who was born in Monroe, La., and reared in poverty, had only six years of formal education. But he built a multimillion-dollar conglomerate of companies that had sales of more than $10 million a year and offices in 38 states in the 1950's and early 1960's.

Mr. Fuller's mother, who died when he was 17 years old, convinced him that the best way out of poverty was through door-to-door sales. He hitchhiked to Chicago and became a salesman but found, he said in a 1963 interview, ''that I could not get ahead working for somebody else.''

In 1935 Mr. Fuller started his company, the Fuller Products Company, with $25, buying soap and then selling it door to door. He later used these sales techniques to offer 30 items of a little-known line of cosmetics. His business grew and he began producing his own cosmetics and allied products, which became nationally known. Newspapers and Real Estate

By 1963 Fuller Products had more than 3,000 sales representatives in 38 states and Mr. Fuller controlled eight other corporations, including a department store in Chicago, a real estate trust in New York, farming and cattle interests and the Courier chain of newspapers serving black audiences in Chicago, New York, Detroit and Pittsburgh.

FULLER PRODUCTS COMPANY IN CHICAGO