Fall 2019 Grant Recipient
Jessica Ann Levy (History)
My book project, Black Power, Inc.: Corporate America, Race, and Empowerment Politics in the U.S. and Africa (University of Pennsylvania Press, under contract), analyzes the financial, ideological, and political investments made by a cohort of black activist-entrepreneurs, government officials, and corporate executives in black empowerment politics in their efforts to shape an emerging post-Jim Crow/post-apartheid world order. Defined as private and public programs promoting job training, community development, and black entrepreneurship, black empowerment increasingly supplanted more radical demands for sanctions and economic justice coming from groups like SNCC and TransAfrica, transforming black communities from North Philadelphia to Soweto in the process.