Jessica Levy
Black Business, Corporate Politics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Multinational Corporations, Race, Urban Development
Women in Business History
I am a historian of American politics, business, and racism. I received my Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University in 2018. I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Virginia in the Department of History and the Democracy Initiative's Corruption Lab on the Ethics, Accountability, and the Rule of Law. My first book, Black Power, Inc.: Corporate America, Race, and Empowerment Politics in the U.S. and Africa (University of Pennsylvania Press, under contract), analyzes the postwar interplay between corporate politics and black politics across multiple sites, from the streets of North Philadelphia to Soweto, to the board rooms of major U.S. corporations like GM and Johnson & Johnson, culminating in the arena of international politics. In doing so, I bring together Business History and Black Studies--two fields often separate in the literature--to reveal the crucial role played by black activist-entrepreneurs and their white corporate allies in shaping the post-Jim Crow/post-apartheid world.
Service to the BHC
Prizes and Grants from the BHC
Recent Conference Participation
| 2026 BHC Meeting:
Presenter, "Decolonizing GM: Joint Ventures and Globalized Automobile Production in the Late Twentieth-Century"
Chair, Public and Corporate Relations in the Automotive Industry |
| 2025 BHC meeting:
Presenter, Roundtable Presentation
Chair, The Cultural Industries of Atlanta Roundtable: Voices from Georgia's Film and Music Industries |
| 2024 BHC Meeting:
Chair, The Business of Organized Labor in the Postwar U.S. Discussant, Race and Corporate Allyship in the US and Among Americans Abroad |
| 2023 BHC Meeting:
Chair, Visions of Good Society Discussant, Visions of Good Society |
| 2022 BHC Meeting :
Discussant, Economic Democracy: Participation, Sovereignty, and Control in North American History |
| 2020 BHC Meeting:
Presenter, "Mandela and Coke: How One of the World’s Most Well-Known Companies Courted a Black Revolutionary"
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