Black Capitalists Book Launch Party
BGX Gallery | 192 Front Street NY, NY 10038
Friday June 13th 2025 | 7pm - 10pm
_____________________________________________________________________________
About the Book
A groundbreaking look at how Black visionaries—from Wall Street to Lagos and beyond—are reimagining capitalism to benefit the needs of Black people and, ultimately, everyone.
“Black Capitalists is a dive into the history of how money is made and our attitudes about wealth. A must read.”—Vanessa Williams, singer, actress, author, producer, and former Miss America
About the Author
After cutting her teeth on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs, Dr. Rachel Laryea left to pursue a dual PhD in African American studies and sociocultural anthropology at Yale University. Her ethnographic research aims to understand nuanced forms of Black participation in capitalist economies. Rachel has held appointments at NYU Stern Business School and is currently a Wealth Management researcher at JPMorganChase. Prior to her current role, Rachel was a racial equity investment strategist, supporting the strategic implementation of the JPMorganChase $30 billion Racial Equity Commitment in service of closing the racial wealth gap for Black, Latino, and Hispanic communities. Rachel is also the founder and CEO of Kelewele, a plantain-inspired food startup based in Brooklyn, New York.
Dr. Rachel Laryea will be in conversation with Kamau Ware, Founder of the Black Gotham Experience.
About Black Gotham Experience
Black Gotham Experience is a creative intervention that elevates the impact of the African Diaspora. We establish space to revisit untold and suppressed stories through a practice that invites people to walk, talk, and reimagine the past to expand public consciousness.
About the Other Wall Street: Capital Remix walk
This walk will combine elements from the first of five core stories of the Black Gotham Experience starting in 1643 with a small town known as Land of the Blacks right outside the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. There will also be elements on how New York City, which is the nation’s first Capital, sets a tone for future generations that will replace true origin stories with mythologies that justify income inequality.
_____________________________________________________________________________
More About "Black Capitalists"
To many, the term “Black Capitalists” is oxymoronic. Black people were the labor force that built the infrastructure of American capitalism through the violent enforcement of legalized slavery, so they cannot, and should not, aspire to be the beneficiaries of it. But Wall Street professional and Yale-educated anthropologist Dr. Rachel Laryea poses a provocative question: What if there was a way to thrive within capitalism without diminishing someone else’s life chances through exploitative practices? There is—and Black Capitalists are showing us how.
Told through Dr. Laryea's own compelling narrative—growing up the child of a single mother who immigrated to the United States from Ghana and rose to the Ivy League and on Wall Street—with original on-the-ground reporting and rigorous historical analysis, Black Capitalists challenges readers to reconsider who gets to be the beneficiary of capitalism and reckons with the responsibility that comes with using the tools of our imperfect economic system to advance social good.
Dr. Laryea reveals in detail how race profoundly shapes the way we participate in capitalism—and how understanding these differences can guide us toward a more inclusive and equitable future. From newly minted undergraduates who find themselves working twenty-hour days to prove their worth on Wall Street to Nigerian startup founders working to build global credit scores, spanning the streets of Accra to the boardrooms of Goldman Sachs, Black Capitalists’ stories and analysis of innovators who are as ambitious as they are altruistic demonstrate the resilience, creativity, and ingenuity of Black people who have long been excluded from the full benefits of the American economic system. At its core, Black Capitalists shows a more productive, and more inclusive, way forward.
#InsideBlackGotham
*Segments of the experience may be live-streamed to and/or recorded.*