James H. Lowry /// A Cause Worth the Fight /// Season5:E125

What do you fight for?  

  

Movements, religion, and love are a few of the many things people spend their lives fighting for.  

When you find a cause or life purpose that ignites a burning passion within you, you will forever be destined to fight all your life to keep it alive and known.  

A successful businessman, author, and our guest Jim Lowry embodies what it means to fight for that passion. For Jim, the burning passion is the desire to boost economic development and create wealth in minority communities.  

In his book, he uses his life story and experiences to convey the advancements that are achieved through the analysis of history and willingness to learn. His life's work is a blueprint for future generations who are willing to ignite that same fire.   

So, what will you fight for? 
 
 

“Be diplomatic but be honest”-  James H.  Lowry 
  

James H. Lowry is a business icon, sought after speaker, strategic advisor and nationally recognized workforce and supplier diversity expert and pioneer. Lowry was the first African American consultant for global consulting firm McKinsey & Company in 1968. Later, he became the first African American senior partner at the prestigious Boston Consulting Group, where he led the firm’s workforce diversity, ethnic marketing and minority business development consulting practice. Lowry continues to serve as a senior advisor to BCG, while heading his own private consulting firm, James H. Lowry & Associates.  

In early 1960’s, Lowry was an associate director with the US Peace Corps, stationed in Lima, Peru, where he met Senator Robert F. Kennedy who recruited him to be a staffer at the new Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation in Brooklyn. While there, he, along with Bed-Stuy resident and actress Roxie Roker, co-hosted the pioneering television show Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York City’s first program written, produced and presented by blacks at a time when blacks were largely invisible on television, or seen only in news footage about riots, protests or crime. In 1985, Lowry also co-hosted the groundbreaking television show MBR: The Minority Business Report.  

In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Lowry is a teacher, mentor and leader across sectors.  

Lowry encapsulated his 30 plus years of experience in the field of minority business development in the book he co-authored in 2011, Minority Business Success: Refocusing on the American Dream. His new book, Change Agent: A Life Dedicated to Creating Wealth for Minorities, is an intimate memoir that demonstrates the power of iconic mentors and pivotal opportunities leveraged across the globe, and offers solutions to the ever-widening wealth gap that plagues black and brown communities today. 

 

Topics we discuss:  

• Characterize success 
• Relationship with money  
• History of the Black community  
• Capitalism seems to perpetuate a scarcity mindset. 
• Big billionaires should flood money into black communities to help.   
• Importance of building a black partner ecosystem. 
• Reliance on the government.  
• Compassion 

References: 

• Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill 
• Change Agent - His Book 
• Francis Parker School - outside Chicago  
• Embryonic Democracy  
• PBS Documentary on the black church Produced by John Legend 
• Crab in the Barrel analogy 
• Lincoln's history of ending Slavery. 
• Dr. Grant's Episode 
• Pel Grants  
• John Thompson - Board of IBM/Microsoft 
• LBJ Quote  
• Illinois Reparations 
• Approval of Reparations in Reconstructions  
• Kent "Lock West" Episode with M.I.C. 

  

Credits: 

Lead editor + Producer: Ruf Holmes 

  

Music: 

Main Theme: "Eaze Does It" by Shye Eaze and DJ Rufbeats, a More In Common Podcast Exclusive. 

All music created by DJ Rufbeats