Julie A. Gibson

In America, all you need is Jesus Christ and a library card.

Julie A. Gibson LIVING LIFE WITH PURPOSE

When Julie A. Gibson talks about financial literacy, economic empowerment, and the need for people of color to close the wealth gap, she not only speaks as a scholar but as someone who has also lived the experience. From humble beginnings, Julie’s grandparents were Mississippi sharecroppers. Her single mother raised five kids on welfare in government housing outside of Chicago, Illinois. She was the first person in her entire extended family to graduate from college. So how does one go from being the granddaughter of Mississippi sharecroppers to working in the highest levels of finance on Wall Street and graduating from Harvard University, I asked? “In America, all you need is Jesus Christ and a library card.” She elaborates on how one act of kindness changed the trajectory of her life. It was one day after school when she was around ten years old. She was at the public library where she went regularly after school just to hang out because it was clean, quiet, and orderly, unlike the chaotic ghetto she eventually had to return home to each day. On this day, the old, mean, steely blue-eyed librarian asked her to step outside the building. At first Julie thought the lady was kicking her out of the place. That lady didn’t suffer fools nor allow any ruckus in ‘her library.’ But no, the librarian asked her to read the name of the person stenciled on the face of the building. Young Julie sounded out the name, “Andrew Carnegie.” The librarian then asked her why his name was on the building. Julie made an educated guess and asked, “Is he the mayor or something?” The librarian said, “No, he is not the mayor. I see you coming here every day just wandering around aimlessly. I want you to find out why Andrew Carnegie’s name is on this building and report back to me.” The librarian, having just gauged that Julie could read, gave Julie her first research assignment. After a couple of days, Julie excitedly turned in her report. It turned out that Andrew Carnegie’s name was on the building because as a philanthropist, Carnegie donated the money to build that library as he had done for most public libraries in America in the late 1890s.

Like Julie, Carnegie had grown up poor. As a kid he worked around the house doing chores for a wealthy General. The General would pay him a nickel a day. But the biggest reward was letting young Carnegie read books in the General’s expansive private library after all the chores were completed. Those books helped develop Carnegie’s young mind and he later became one of the wealthiest industrialists in America. He remembered how important reading was and decided to build public libraries with his wealth. He famously said, “The public library is the poor man’s university.” Like Carnegie, Julie read and read all her way to a Harvard education. The public library was the place where Julie started her journey and learned a big word for a ten-year-old from the ghetto: “philanthropy.”

At Harvard, Julie’s research centered on questions involving the relationship between Democracy and Income Inequality, and how philanthropy might fill the gaps. She wanted to know why Black people in the US and South Africa tended to stay at the bottom economically. She focused on two questions: (1) Are people of color steered toward political participation at the expense of economic empowerment? And (2) If so, will income inequality cause Black people to lose faith in politics and democracy. In her work looking at the history of the NAACP in the United States and the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, she did indeed find that those organizations were focused on Black voting rights in presidential elections at the expense of more tangible economic development efforts. For example, a speech by a NAACP Regional Director in the 1970s articulated the mindset of the NAACP at the time with respect to Black capitalism and democracy. The director said: “Black capitalism will not help the Black worker — the Black worker has an enormously significant political role to play. We must continually point out that the source funds for a genuine war on poverty lies in Washington and that liberal thinking men are to be elected to national office. Black people must vote.” Efforts to broaden access to capital for Black business ownership and entrepreneurship were consistently shot down by these organizations as they focused primarily on voting rights.

The reason Julie chose to look at the United States and South Africa is because those two countries share similar racial and economic histories. Their histories included the use of slave or migrant labor to secure rapid accumulation of wealth for a small subset of the population. In the US, slave labor built tremendous wealth in the South and in Northern industries involved in textile exports. In South Africa, Black low wage mining labor built the fortunes of names like Cecil Rhodes, the Rothschilds and the Oppenheimers, families whose extreme wealth exists to this day. Although poor Black people challenged the status quo with the civil rights movement in the US and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, political participation rose in tandem with extreme economic inequality. Systemic racial oppression and economic injustice persist to this day. It is called racial capitalism.

When asked about Reparative Philanthropy, Julie states, I want a deeper reckoning with racial capitalism in America. Racial capitalism points to the fact that the large wealth gap in America between Black people and Whites is a direct result of the inseparable interlock of racial domination through cheap or free Black labor. It involves the notion that White capital accumulation was fundamentally driven by violence and coercion against Black labor. As a result, Julie agrees with those calling for reparations. In her

book, Daughters of the Diaspora Get Ready, she says: “American descendants of slavery are due reparations for the forced slave labor of their ancestors, and the African continent is due reparations for the theft of human capital that left its shores.” But, She says, we are past the stage of ‘40 acres and a mule’. America must address social ills, mental and physical health disparities, education, and income inequality gaps. In her research, Julie recommends a comprehensive approach involving Reparative Philanthropy. This supports the idea that capital can be deployed through philanthropic foundations to address social failures such as political and economic inequality. The reparative component in philanthropy comes into play by acknowledging that harm has been done to a specific segment of society and that the philanthropy should be targeted and aimed at restoration. She believes that wealthy philanthropists can play a pivotal role in rectifying and counter-balancing the impact of racial capitalism. Wealthy foundations should be incentivized to tackle reparative justice issues as they donate monies to help remedy the worst off who are impacted by an unjust system. Philanthropic programs could target marginalized groups for entrepreneurial training, financial literacy, business capital, and subcontracts with large multinational corporations. These measures can help close income gaps and provide an economic footing for future generations.

For her part, Julie sees herself as a “truth teller,” continuing to advocate for remedies against racial capitalism and injustice. She advocates from an informed perspective having worked in the Capital Markets industry for twenty years spanning multiple disciplines including: brokerage, banking, derivatives, foreign exchange, compliance, and accounting. She sees the difference financial literacy can make in the community as she teaches young people financial fundamentals. About Julie

Julie A. Gibson became knowledgeable in High Finance with the intent of helping those in her community close the knowledge gap in financial literacy. She started her career as an internal auditor in the Capital Markets industry and went on to support clients’ Derivatives activities on Wall Street and the City of London. Julie later became the youngest Vice President and interim CFO of international banking conglomerate ABN AMRO’s Chicago based Capital Markets operation. When Julie and her family relocated to Tampa, Florida she joined Merrill Lynch as the sole Black female investment advisor in the office. She later joined Metlife, managing their mortgage-backed securities accounting operations and was selected to travel to New Delhi, India to direct talent and migrate those operations offshore.

Most recently, Julie has focused on commercial real estate (CRE). As a licensed realtor, and with her extensive finance background, she enjoys helping CRE clients build generational wealth through various asset classes and sectors including multifamily, warehouses, nonprofit institutions, and affordable housing. In addition to CRE, Julie has honed her entrepreneurial and creative talents as a speaker, author, and publisher of inspirational and selfhelp books. She is the author of four non-fiction books, all available at Amazon:

• Daughters of the

Diaspora Get Ready

• Iraq the Graveyard of Empires

• Power Prayers for Kingdom Dominion

• Urban Monks and Mystics

Julie enjoys her equally important roles as wife and mother. She has been married to Dr. Albert Kabemba for thirty years. They reside in Thonotosassa, Florida and have one son, Uriah Kabemba who is an aspiring film director.