What Berkshire Buys Next: The Five Giants That Fit Buffett’s Playbook "With over $380 billion in cash and short-term Treasuries, the conglomerate is sitting on more dry powder than most central banks."

LESS: Can Minimalism Spur African American Wealth Building? "The utility of minimalism as a wealth-building mechanism is not merely philosophical it is arithmetically demonstrable."

College: Once A Space For Human Exploration Has Been Trampled By Corporate Conditioning "There is a revealing diagnostic embedded in a question any professor can pose on the first day of class: why are you here?"

The Wire Reimagined: From Gangsters To HBCU Leadership "Slim Charles is chosen to be an HBCU president because of his keen strategy abilities, intelligence, foresight, adaptability, and willingness to make tough decisions."

The Prospect Heights Empire, Part II: From Newsprint to Natural Resources — How Flavor Group Holdings Built a Vertical Integration Strategy for the Ages "Step back and consider what Flavor Group Holdings had assembled by 2015, beginning from a magazine operation and a Brooklyn brownstone in 1995."

"Six people. Six distinct competencies. One address. The question is not whether they had what it took. The question is why no one ever suggested they combine it."

The Seven (Internal) Barriers to Building Sustainable African American Philanthropic Infrastructure "The fourth group recognizes the need for African American institutions but believes funding them is someone else’s responsibility."

The Prospect Heights Empire, Part I: What Khadijah James, Kyle Barker, and the Living Single Six Could Have Built Together "To understand the magnitude of the missed opportunity, one must first inventory the human capital assembled inside that Brooklyn brownstone."

The Endowment Edge: A Conversation With The University Of Virgin Islands’ Dr. Haldane Davies "We certainly support investments with African Diaspora investment firms as part of our overall investment strategy."

The Five Evergreen Acres: A Land Investment Framework for Every Stage of African American Life "Pastureland generates recurring lease income from ranchers and livestock operators with relatively low management overhead"

The Counter-Curriculum: How HBCUs Must Respond to a Global Infrastructure of Violence Against (Black) Women "Black adult women are six times more likely to be killed than white women, and an estimated 51 percent of Black female adult homicides are related to intimate partner violence."

Broke & Dating: African Americans Cannot Afford to Date — Nor Can They Afford Not To "This is not a romantic observation. It is an institutional and economic one, and it deserves to be examined as such."

What Berkshire Buys Next: The Five Giants That Fit Buffett’s Playbook "Buffett’s philosophy has been remarkably consistent for over six decades: buy simple, cash-rich, moated businesses led by trustworthy managers."

The Counter-Curriculum: How HBCUs Must Respond to a Global Infrastructure of Violence Against (Black) Women "What Black America is experiencing is not an anomaly. It is the domestic expression of a global pattern that follows Black and African-descended women across every geography..."

The Case For Mergers: Marrying The Big Four HBCU Conferences Into Two "The fact that HBCUs largely lack the booster power to maintain their FCS infrastructure, largely leaning on the backs of their students to drive revenues through student fees has always been a matter of concern"

The Myth Of The Overpaid Pro Athlete: Teachers Actually Make More Than NFL Players Athletes’ Median Salaries (based on career earnings) If Spread Out Until Age 65 NFL Players – $34,200 NBA Players – $144,000 MLB Players – $85,600 NHL Players – $81,300

The Ecosystem We Have Not Built: What the HERD Survey Tells Us About HBCU Research Infrastructure "HBCUs accounted for 0.79% of it which is less than eight-tenths of one percent of the nation’s research investment"

The Gridiron Mirage: Debunking the NFL as the Engine of African American Wealth "Meanwhile, wealth in America is driven by ownership: of businesses, real estate, stocks, and institutions. The NFL offers none of these to the vast majority of its Black athletes."

Delay As Strategy: Why Democrats Must Stall The Federal Reserve Chair Confirmation Until After The 2026 Midterms "The Federal Reserve does not often feature in discussions of HBCUs. It should."

The Forgotten Mission – HBCUs Account For Less Than One Percent Of America’s College Research Spending "HBCUs comprise approximately 2.3 percent of all colleges and universities in America. However, they make up only 0.7 percent of the research and development spending by American universities."

The Confederacy of Capital: The Texas Stock Exchange and the Risk of Southern Financial Hegemony "Texas has rapidly positioned itself as the national headquarters of the movement to strip social and governance accountability from investment and corporate decision-making."

The Counter-Curriculum: How HBCUs Must Respond to a Global Infrastructure of Violence Against (Black) Women "More than four in ten Black women experience physical violence from an intimate partner during their lifetimes — a rate higher than white women, Latinas, and Asian & Pacific Islander women."

Why Do HBCUs Not Bank With Black Banks? "Meanwhile, right in Howard University’s backyard is Industrial Bank, an African American Owned Bank with $723 million in assets, meaning PNC Bank has over 760 times the amount of assets of Industrial."

Starting a Philanthropy Club: A Collective Approach to African American Giving "It makes sense to start a philanthropy club with family, friends, or HBCU alumni because, most of the time, your values are well-aligned."

Tommy Ain’t Got No Job—But He Had a Portfolio: Rewriting Financial Narratives Through Black Fictional Wealth "The more intuitive read — the one requiring no further explanation — was that Tommy must be hustling. He must be in the streets. A drug dealer felt more believable than an investor."

The Quiet Collapse of HBCU-Based Credit Unions "The trajectory is not encouraging. Even among the survivors, total membership has declined by more than seven percent since 2016, dropping from 12,467 members to 11,588."

Bringing New Faces to the Global Shipping Industry: A Nod to Garvey & Black Star Line "It is the physical infrastructure through which international trade operates and one of the largest, most capital-intensive industries in the world in which Black institutional investment is effectively absent."

LeBron James Parrots Laura Ingraham in the City Dr. King Died in Trying to Build African American Institutional Power "King came to Memphis for sanitation workers earning $1.70 an hour. He was not interested in whether the city impressed visiting athletes."

That Kind of Man Is Never Poor: Why Educated, Enterprising, and Ambitious Black Love Demands Mutual Support "She was describing a compatibility of spirit — the recognition that two people with aligned orientations toward growth could build something neither could build alone."

HBCUs Have A $1.6 Billion Annual “Cost Of College” Deficit – And A Crisis Is Looming Because Of It "Unfortunately, because African American households are economically poor and psychologically devalue African American institutions, then being more expensive than the norm is not an option."

Two Wrongs Do Not Make A Generational Wealth: Elvin, Sondra, The Huxtables – And A Wilderness Store "Dr. and Mrs. Huxtable, Esq.’s jobs as doctor and lawyer, respectively allows a family to build up the capital base and stability needed to take on the risk of starting a firm."

African American Tuition Valued At $64 Billion; But HBCUs Receive Less Than $6 Billion Annually "Yet when families sit down to make college decisions, often the single largest financial investment they will make outside of purchasing a home, the conversation shifts."

Minding Whose Store: African America Businesses Generate Just 0.43% of U.S. Revenue "The more instructive question is not whether Black consumers will choose to spend with Black businesses. It is whether Black businesses exist that other communities have no choice but to spend with."

The Color Line Was Never Broken: MLB’s Jackie Robinson Day and the Permanent Absence of Black Ownership "The answer, measurable across 79 years, is nothing. Because in the entire recorded history of MLB, there has never been a single African American principal owner of a franchise. Not one."

FAMU Alumna & Atlanta Cigar Week Co-Founder Octavia Toliver is Adding New Flavor to the Old Boys’ Club of Cigars "I was introduced to cigars by a guy who took me on a date to a cigar bar 10 years ago. I don’t remember his name, but I remember the cigars! Lol."

Beyond The Deed: African American Real Estate Ownership Must Mature From Shelter to Strategy "This framing is emotionally powerful and historically resonant. It is also, from a wealth-building perspective, incomplete."

More Than A Decade Later: New York’s Carver Bank Has Not Returned To African American Ownership "Despite all the attention, Carver’s stock remains volatile, trading below $4 per share for much of 2024. Its market capitalization hovers under $20 million—hardly a prize for large investors."

From Hillman to the World: How Whitley Gilbert-Wayne Built a Pan-African Art Empire "The Diaspora Art Investment Fund launched with $500,000 in seed capital from twenty Hillman alumni investors."

Mapping the Gap: The Geography of African American Banks and Credit Unions in 2025 "Louisiana stands out, with one bank and 25 credit unions, the most of any state in the credit union count."

2024’s Most Powerful Women in African American Owned Banks "As our institutions decrease, so then do our ability to create opportunities for our communities."

Why Are HBCUs Not Becoming College Towns Where African American Businesses Thrive? "It is a simple question really. What good is African America’s $1.6 trillion in buying power if all of it goes into companies owned by non-African Americans?"

The Africa Travel Ban Is an HBCU Problem "For HBCUs specifically, this is not a distant geopolitical event. It is a direct threat to an enrollment strategy, a revenue base, and a civilizational relationship that institutions have spent decades building."

More Than Sports: HBCU Conferences Need To Create Their Own Endowment Foundations "Take the Ivy League. Its member schools may not be athletic powerhouses, but collectively they manage over $200 billion in endowment assets."

Minding Whose Store: African America Businesses Generate Just 0.43% of U.S. Revenue "The more instructive question is not whether Black consumers will choose to spend with Black businesses. It is whether Black businesses exist that other communities have no choice but to spend with."

Money is no good unless it contributes something to the community, unless it builds a bridge to a better life. Any man can make money, but it takes a special kind of man to use it responsibly. - A. G. Gaston #HBCUMoneyThink

With So Much Oil In HBCU States – Where Are HBCU Alumni Owned Energy Firms? "But the renewable transition could offer an inflection point. The barriers to entry are lower, the policies more inclusive, and the urgency to diversify the energy economy is real."

That Kind of Man Is Never Poor: Why Educated, Enterprising, and Ambitious Black Love Demands Mutual Support "The Black couple that builds a business strong enough to employ a hundred people and endow a scholarship fund is not just building a legacy for their children."

Are New Mexico, Maine, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands the Only Social, Economic, and Politically Safe Territories for African Americans? "African American institutions (HBCUs, banks, and foundations) should view these geographies not simply as refuges but as development frontiers."

From Hillman to the World: How Whitley Gilbert-Wayne Built a Pan-African Art Empire "The Diaspora Art Investment Fund launched with $500,000 in seed capital from twenty Hillman alumni investors."

HBCUs Can Fill the Void: How America’s Retreat from Polar Research Creates an Unprecedented Opportunity for Black Academic Leadership "Imagine Howard University leading joint oceanographic research with the University of Ghana coordinating atmospheric monitoring stations across the Caribbean."