25th reunion of Harvard MBAs

Ebony, Jan, 1994

They had a vision not only for themselves but, more importantly, for Black people.

In 1968, when 26 Black students entered the Harvard Business School, the largest number of Blacks the school had ever admitted, they had no idea how they would be received. The only thing they knew for sure was their presence on Harvard's campus that year -- the year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and more than 100 American cities went up in flames -- was more than a coincidence. It was a direct response to the times and to six Black students in the class of 1969 who had demanded an increase in the African-American presence in the MBA program.

It was against that backdrop that many of these students made a promise to themselves and to each other -- a promise that has stretched over a quarter century and forever changed the way business is done at the Harvard Business School.

Their promise was simple yet profound: They would earn the coveted MBA degree from what many believed to be the nation's premier business school, but they would never again be the smallest group of Black students to walk those hallowed halls. For if they had learned anything from the Black class of 1969, it was that it wasn't enough for them to boldly go where mostly White men had gone before. They needed to organize a concentrated effort to attract Black talent. They needed to do everything they could to open Harvard's doors to as many Black students as possible. They needed to pull others through with them, just as the Black class of 1969 had opened the doors for them.

"We had a dual mission," explains Daniel Dennis who now heads his own CPA firm in Boston. "Not only were we going to earn our MBAs, we were going to do all we could to increase the number of Black students at the school."

But for Dennis and many of his Black classmates, that was only half of the mission. The other half was about how they would use their MBAs once they left the school.

To the surprise of many outsiders, members of this historic class didn't want to use their MBAs merely to get a foothold in the White corporate world, or to amass enough personal wealth to buy baubles, beach houses and BMWs. They wanted to use their degrees to encourage Black economic development, to move Black people forward by creating new Black businesses and supporting existing ones.

"For us, the expectation was that the experience of the Harvard Business School would give us an edge in providing leadership in the development of minority businesses," says Herbert Wilkins, who heads a multimillion dollar Washington, D.C.-based venture capital fund. "Most of us had a commitment to pursue the development of minority business -- not to go to work for a major corporation. We knew we had the potential of making a difference and that's why we were there."

Leonard Fuller, a former senior partner at Coopers & Lybrand and the reunion's organizer, agrees. "When we entered the business school, the only Blacks you usually saw, in corporations were at the north end of a southbound mop," says Fuller, who, in 1990, left his position as one of fewer than 50 Blacks among the approximately 10,000 partners in all of the Big 6 accounting firms to open his own management consulting firm. "Even then, we knew how important it was to create Black businesses that were capable of competing with any in the country."

Four months ago, ten members of the class of 1970 came together to mark the 25th anniversary of their promise and to measure their success at fulfilling it. And it was gratifying to see how much and how well they bad fulfilled their self-designed destinies.

Of the 26 Black students who entered Harvard in that historic class, 22 received their MBAs. More significantly, many have spent their careers fulfilling their promise. Of the ten alumni attending the reunion, six -- Leonard Fuller, Daniel Dennis, Robert James, Herbert Wilkins Sr., Tyrone Dickerson and Wil Stevens -- run their own firms or head Black-owned companies. Two -- Richard Lowery, III and Sherman Jones -- spurned the corporate fast track for careers in Black education. Wayne Taylor is assistant headmaster of a private California high school and Lenal Anderson Jr. is a Memphis attorney.

And, just as they vowed when they were struggling students, they have struggled to ensure that their careers contribute to Black economic empowerment.

Five compelling examples:

* Herbert Wilkins manages a group of telecommunications venture capital funds which have provided financing that made it possible for Blacks to become media property owners.

* Daniel Dennis was recently honored by the U.S. Small Business Administration as the Minority Business Advocate of the Year.

* Robert james has used his position as president and CEO of the 66-year-old Black-owned Carver State Bank in Savannah, Ga., to pioneer the redevelopment of the inner city. Recently, he used his clout to help avert a financial crisis which would have closed the doors of a 103-year-old historically Black institution, his alma mater, Morris Brown College.