Jessica Levy

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.