Can Jaylen Brown bring a Black Wall Street to Boston?

investmentnews.com:

Jaylen Brown plans to use the most lucrative contract in National Basketball Association history to attack the wealth gap.

The Boston Celtics awarded the player a $304 million contract Wednesday. When asked what he plans to do with the money, Brown said he’d like to invest in bringing a Black Wall Street to Boston to bridge what he called an “unsettling” wealth disparity.

“With the biggest financial deal in NBA history, it makes sense to talk about, one, your investment in community, and, two, also, you know, the wealth disparity [in Boston] that no one wants to talk about,” Brown said in a press conference discussing his new contract. “I think through my platform, through influential partners, through selected leaders, government officials — a lot who are in this room — that we could come together and create new jobs, new resources, new businesses, new ideas that could highlight minorities but also stimulate the economy and the wealth gap at the same time.”

Jaylen Brown, who recently signed the biggest contract in NBA history, says he wants to use it to combat the “unsettling” wealth disparity in Boston

“I want to launch a project to bring Black Wall Street to Boston and help bridge the wealth gap.“

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— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) <a href=«https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1684560926098468866?ref_src=» https:>July 27, 2023

According to a 2022 report from Boston University’s Initiative on Cities, U.S.-born Black households in the Boston metropolitan area had median wealth of just $8 in 2014, compared to white households’ median wealth of $256,500.

Wealth inequality in Boston is a serious, complex issue with historical and systemic roots, including the legacy of slavery, redlining and lending