Celtics Star Jaylen Brown Wants To Recreate A Version Of Black Wall Street In Boston With This New Venture

Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown has officially launched his bid to recreate Black Wall Street in Boston.

Brown, who is 27 years old and has been in the league for eight years, is launching Boston XChange, a nonprofit aiming to build generational wealth and cultural innovation in Black and brown communities.

As part of the endeavor, Brown is partnering with Harvard Business School, Roxbury Community College and teammate Jrue Holiday’s JFH Fund to offer up to $250,000 in total grant investment. As part of the offer, recipients will receive three years of coaching and mentorship.

“To be able to give access to capital, create sustainability and culturally competent initiatives, all of these insights have informed us on how to create this program for Boston,” Brown said in a Zoom interview, according to a report from Bloomberg .

Brown has said he wants to use his platform to create a modern-day version of Black Wall Street, a Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma that was one of the country’s wealthiest in the 20th century. In 1921, it was burned down with hundreds of Black Tulsans killed and thousands left homeless.

Brown chose Boston because of the wealth disparity. A Boston Federal Reserve Bank 2015 study found the median net worth for white households in Greater Boston was $250,000 while for Black households, it was just $8.

Another study conducted by McKinsey & Co. claims that it will take as long as three centuries for Black Americans to achieve the same quality of life as their White neighbors after the racial gap widened in over half the country in the past decade.

Brown, who signed a $285 million contract in 2023, has been in talks with other NBA players and owners about supporting the ambitious project.

“Being able to partner with people who have high influence in other places can make it more impactful,” he said to Bloomberg.