African Americans - Publications - Faculty & Research

10 Feb 2016
News

Helping Young African MBAs Go Home

listed.” The group also helps would-be business students apply to American schools. “Part of what we do is purely applications, helping to improve representation of Africans in business school,” Igun says.... View Details

07 Dec 2015
News

Making Higher Ed Accessible to Africans

who started his first company, Tribeca Designs, an efficient storage CD tower, while a student at Harvard Business School, spent his early post-HBS years working for private equity firms before joining Radio One—an American broadcasting... View Details

13 Feb 2019
News

Bridging the Worlds of Hip-Hop and Contemporary Art

Keywords: Visual arts; Swiss Beatz; Hip hop; collectors; African American; Arts, Entertainment

07 Jun 2017
Research & Ideas

How an African History Scholar Became a Modern Righter of Wrongs

in what people think, and you need to find the right people to talk to you,” says Elkins, a professor of history and African and African American Studies at Harvard, and the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

22 Feb 2018
Book

The New History of American Capitalism

scholars studying racialization as an enduring American strategy for the coercion and control of labor, particularly African American labor. Race and capitalism is an expanding... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing

October 2013 (Revised November 2021)
Case

Cynthia Carroll at Anglo American (A)

By: Gautam Mukunda, Lisa Mazzanti and Aldo Sesia

In 2007, Cynthia Carroll, the newly-appointed chief executive of mining giant Anglo American, was considering shutting down mines in South Africa for safety reasons, namely worker fatalities. No company had ever done so before. Carroll felt that operating a company... View Details

Keywords: Culture; Leadership; Gender; Safety; Working Conditions; Business Exit or Shutdown; Organizational Culture; Change Management; Mining; Mining Industry; South Africa

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01 Mar 2008
News

An American Odyssey

prevailing beliefs.” America and his family forebears have experienced an odyssey that, one might say, is uniquely American. As best he can determine, America is descended from an enslaved African named America who escaped to freedom... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; Lawrence Fouraker; Business Schools & Computer & Management Training; Educational Services; Finance

25 Jan 2016
News

Helping Young African Managers Find Their Way Home

You wouldn’t know it from most American media, but many sub-Saharan African nations have booming economies. And although the press may have missed the boat on this African... View Details

Keywords: Constantine von Hoffman

29 Jul 2013
News

Opening New Markets for Black South African Winemakers

In addition to traditional wine distribution in the United States, Cuffe made deals with several US airlines to carry Heritage Link wines. "Our first contract created 200 jobs on the ground," Cuffe says proudly. "And ours was the first South View Details

Keywords: wine; wine making; wine importing; Food Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Food and Beverage Stores; Retail Trade

07 May 2018
News

What I Learned from Visiting All 54 African Countries

exacting and precise, even Americans are this way to a certain extent. They demand almost perfection all the time. And Africans don't. And so as a result, they're forgiving when people are imperfect. And... View Details

22 Feb 2022
News

Brand New

because they play such a significant part in people’s lives,” says Sundy, now senior vice president and chief commercial officer for another American classic, La-Z-Boy. “Sometimes these brands get old or stale,” he admits, “but they still... View Details

Keywords: April White; manufacturing; life experience; leadership; Black; African American; Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing; Manufacturing

01 Dec 2019
News

3-Minute Briefing: Leslie Hale (MBA 2001)

surround myself with very smart people. But don’t confuse my desire to be collaborative with an inability to make decisions. I’m honored and humbled to be the first African American woman to become CEO of a... View Details

Keywords: April White; real estate; leadership; diversity; African American; career paths; women in business; Real Estate

September 2019 (Revised October 2019)
Case

Burunda Prince at The Farm, a Comcast NBCUniversal Innovation Hub (Powered by Boomtown)

By: Linda A. Hill, Eric Mankin and Emily Tedards

After a successful inaugural year, Burunda Prince, the Managing Director of Comcast’s startup business accelerator The Farm, was getting ready for an eventful 2019. Comcast was America's largest cable and internet service provider, having built a profitable business... View Details

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01 Sep 2020
News

3-Minute Briefing: Mark Mason (MBA 1995)

In the summer when it got really hot, my brother and I would buy cases of water. We grew up in Queens near Linden Boulevard and we would stand on the corner and sell bottles of water to people who stopped at the light. We always had this knack for creating... View Details

Keywords: April White; Photo by: Michael Bucher; banking; diversity; COVID-19; leadership; African American; career advice; Finance

01 Mar 2017
News

The Inside Story of the New American Writers Museum

noting that the founders drew on planning documents for several recent museums, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. “For a museum on our scale, it takes a lot... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna

October 2017
Article

American Danger: United States Empire, Eurafrica, and the Territorialization of Industrial Capitalism, 1870–1950

By: Sven Beckert

During the last third of the nineteenth century, a debate emerged in a number of European countries on the “American danger.” Responding to the rapid rise of the United States as the world’s most important economy, some European observers feared their nations’... View Details

Keywords: Atlantropa; Colonial Expansion; Economic Nationalism; Second Great Divergence; Economics; Global Range; History; United States; Europe; Africa

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17 May 2017
Research & Ideas

Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews

interviews. 'Whitened' resumes produce more job call-backs for African Americans Blacks get more job interview callbacks when they “whiten” their resumes. Graphic by Blair Storie-Johnson (Source: “Whitened... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Video

Unite–Serve–Lead: The Founding and Impact of the Harvard Business School African-American Student Union

March 2021
Teaching Plan

The Black New Venture Competition

By: Karen G. Mills, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Martin A. Sinozich and Gabriella Elanbeck

Black entrepreneurs encounter many unique obstacles when raising capital to start and grow a business, some stemming from deep systemic discrimination. During their second year at Harvard Business School (HBS), MBA students Kimberly Foster and Tyler Simpson decided to... View Details

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November 2012
Article

An Age Penalty in Racial Preferences

By: Deborah A. Small, Devin G. Pope and Michael I. Norton

We document an age penalty in racial discrimination: charitable behavior toward African American children decreases-and negative stereotypical inferences increase-with the age of those children. Using data from an online charity that solicits donations for school... View Details

Keywords: Stereotyping; Charitable Giving; Prejudice; Prosocial Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Age; Race; Prejudice and Bias