In 1991, the newly freed Nelson Mandela made a trip to the United States and met a group of the country’s top African American business people. Their leader was Earl Graves.

Graves (who died in 2020) became a symbol of black America’s transition from civil rights to economic empowerment. He started and ran many businesses, including a Pepsi franchise, and was the founder of Black Enterprise magazine.

In his early 30s, Graves worked for Senator Robert F Kennedy. The Civil Rights era was a heady time for African Americans. It seemed that the law would protect their right to live a prosperous life along with everyone else.

The reality was somewhat different. Graves’ book How To Succeed in Business Without Being White gives an insight into what it’s like to do business amid continuing mistrust and prejudice.

Graves grew up in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Barbados immigrants. At Morgan State University he took business as his major, which some classmates and even professors thought was ridiculous. Business was for whites.

But Graves had an entrepreneurial bent. His thinking was, “basketball was once the white man’s game too.”

Graves became a captain in the Green Berets, then a real estate broker, but politics beckoned. From 1965 to 1968 he worked on Robert F Kennedy’s staff. Kennedy was then a Senator of New York, and preparing for his bid for the presidency.

The experience opened Graves’ eyes to the power and wealth of the white American elite. Even though they were in the same camp, Kennedy seemed to be from another world. He never carried money or a wallet, indeed hardly even seemed to have to think of money.

To someone who had been raised in an environment of lack, this inspired Graves as much as the political agenda. He began to see how psychologically liberating wealth could be for African Americans.

If Robert Kennedy had not been assassinated and been elected president, Graves would no doubt have joined his administration in a high-ranked position. But the tragedy made him fast track his idea for a magazine focusing on black economic advancement.