New Bo's: The Rise of America's New Black Overclass

2009-02-24

Lee Hawkins spent three years tracking wealth as it was accumulated by a new generation of millionaires. Hawkins, a Wall Street Journal reporter assigned to cover developments in the auto industry, started spending time in New York for his work and discovered a cluster of young titans doing the damn thing both in the public eye and behind the scenes. He started a three-year paper trail interviewing the newly wealthy and, lo and behold, discovered a theme.

The fruits of his labor, "New Bo’s: The New American Black Overclass, " airs February 26 on CNBC. Following the athlete, the entrepreneur, the producer, the artist, Hawkins documents the birth of new money and the path of those who have nurtured it into wealth.

How did this project come about in the first place?
I’m a Wall St Journal reporter. I’ve been doing financial reporting for years. I grew up in the hip-hop culture. Hip-hop, along with my faith, has inspired me to be a very hard worker.

Hard worker?
Hip-hop is about going for your dreams. If you look at the heroes – Russell Simmons, Diddy -- so many people that have built empires. We don’t always look at them as businessmen, but there’s a reason Sean Combs is worth more than $300 million as a young black man.

In New York, I started to see clusters of young black Americans building wealth in these industries behind the scenes and on stage. Kedar Massenburg, Chris Lighty,  Steven Stoute. So many people building businesses as entrepreneurs.

You obviously interviewed many more subjects than ended up in the program. How did you whittle down your list?
I’ve done hundreds of interviews. What I’ve tried to do is to pick the stories most relevant to the themes, which include entrepreneurship (increased collaboration between these individuals), increased social awareness (to what extent do we have a responsibility to Black America) and intergenerational mentorship between the emerging class and the baby boomers before them. Oprah Winfrey, Magic Johnson, Bob Johnson. How many more Magic Johnson’s could come out of that class if we think about it in those terms.

Any characteristics they have in common?
Many. Hardship, which I would go so far as to call black privilege because we can really turn our hardships into advantages. A lot of these young people have not come from the most stable environments.

Mentorship – if not a father, then a mother or a grandmother. If not them, then a coach. They are not insulated from effects of that just because they’re celebrities. Chris Brown when they see him, they see a young black man. Some of them, like Tiger Woods will invent their own racial classification. Or their own set of responsibilities.

Does this drastically change the executive model as we know it?
There’s an evolutionary process that anybody goes through who’s wealthy – wealth creation, then an enjoyment stage, so many examples of people that came out of that and went into the growth stage – Sean Combs -- gun charges; Mary J. Blige – had hardship now she has a family and has put herself on the right track. Other people get stuck. It’s important to write about these subjects because these people have billions of dollars that affect our country and our young people. So it’s really not a smart thing to dismiss them because they’re standing alongside Barack Obama, presented with an incredible opportunity for these young people to use their celebrity to advance themselves and their responsibility.

It’s time to follow a new model. Quite a few young people are up to the task.

New Bo’s: The New American Black Overclass airs February 26 on CNBC.