THE ONLY ONE IN THE ROOM

On Wall Street, being Black often means being alone, held back, deprived of the best opportunities. On these pages, Black men and women tell their stories

- MAX ABELSON, SONALI BASAK, KELSEY BUTLER, MATTHEW LEISING, JENNY SURANE, and GILLIAN TAN

IT MIGHT SEEM IMPOSSIBLE to tell the history of Black people on Wall Street. That’s because the finance industry shut African Americans out of its executive suites and banking partnerships and off trading floors for decades. Even now, despite diversity programs and pledges to do better, Wall Street’s highest echelons lack Black faces, with rare exceptions. Another challenge to telling the story of African Americans in finance is that the people who’ve lived it blazed wildly different paths. There is no one definitive experience. But all their stories matter. What happens inside this industry ripples out into American wallets, homes, neighborhoods, corporations, and government. Outright racism and institutional failings on Wall Street have limited Black wealth and dreams. But African-American bankers have also sometimes helped pave the way for others to succeed. This year’s corporate avowals, workplace statistics, and diversity benchmarks have risen in a cacophony that risks drowning out the very voices they’re meant to spotlight. Some of those voices, edited for brevity and clarity, speak out on these pages. They reflect decades of a Black presence on Wall Street, from just a few years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination to today, amid fury over George Floyd’s death at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. Some made it to the top, some left disenchanted. Some became rich, some were so marginalized they had to sue. Some think Wall Street is hopeless, some are more optimistic than ever. —Kelsey Butler and Max Abelson

I. Getting There