This two-time NBA All-Star aims to use his platform to stimulate growth in Boston's black-owned businesses
Hot on the trails of his spectacular new contract, NBA star Jaylen Brown is keen on harnessing his platform to amplify wealth distribution.
At a media briefing held Wednesday, following the guard’s record-setting five-year, $303.7 million supermax contract extension with the Boston Celtics, Brown announced his intentions to utilize this “generational wealth” constructively.
“”I want to launch a project to bring Black Wall Street here in Boston,” Brown, 26, proclaimed, as reported by CNN and ESPN. “I want to attack the wealth disparity here. I think there’s analytics that supports that stimulating the wealth gap could actually be something that could be better meant for the entire economy.”
He further commented, “With the biggest financial deal in NBA history, it makes sense to talk about one year investment in community, but… the wealth disparity here that nobody wants to talk about is top five in the US (and) is something that we can all improve on it. It’s unsettling.”
Boston’s Jaylen Brown Aims to Transform Media Perception of Black Men: It’s ‘Important’ According to media reports, Brown envisions his version of a “Black Wall Street” to “create new jobs, new resources, new businesses, new ideas” for the Northeast U.S. corridor. This would reflect the impact of the original Black Wall Street which catered to prosperous Black residents in Tulsa, Okla., in the early 20th century.
“Boston could be a fully integrated self-sufficient hub,” he proposed. “I think Boston could be the pilot, not just for wealth disparity here in the US, but also for around the world.”
This isn’t the first instance where the two-time NBA All-Star has voiced his support for black-owned businesses.
In 2020, Brown conversed with PEOPLE about his involvement in the Commit to C.A.R.E. (Care About Racial Equity) Now initiative, sponsored by Dove Men+Care. For this project, Brown collaborated with NBA peers Chris Paul, Donovan Mitchell, Aaron Gordon, and Danny Green.
As a continuation of their efforts to raise awareness about systemic racism in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s deaths, the initiative aimed to shift stereotypes typically linked to Black men.
“How Black men are looked at and represented in culture is important,” Brown told PEOPLE. “To try to change some of those narratives in media is a great effort.”
He also added, “It’s important to get more positive roles [in movies and television] and things like that, and create a demand for people to see that, so they can see Black men and women in a positive light,” he continued. “Those roles were far and few between, and while I think there’s more now than before, you wouldn’t see a lot of African-American movies or TV shows that were successful — there just weren’t positive narrative [stories] for African-Americans.”
Story courtesy of PEOPLE.