Kendra Boyd on Black Business and Racial Capitalism during the Great Migration

Take a moment and picture the average person who came North during the Great Migration. Chances are good that you conjured someone who was African-American and working-class, bound for a city in search of a job, say, in a factory or in domestic service. But as Kendra Boyd's new book, Freedom Enterprise , reveals, the Great Migration also saw entrepreneurs moving to the urban North in search of opportunity. Once they arrived in places like Detroit, these businesspeople had to navigate a fraught landscape that was profoundly structured by race and racism. Today's episode tackles everything from female entrepreneurs, to illegal hustling, racial uplift, and urban renewal. The boxer Joe Louis even makes an appearance. And we'll grapple with a big and vexed question: Can you overcome racial capitalism by being a Black capitalist?

You can listen to Kendra Boyd on Black Business and Racial Capitalism during the Great Migration online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Kendra Boyd on Black Business and Racial Capitalism during the Great Migration is an episode from Who Makes Cents?: A History of Capitalism Podcast by Jessica Levy.

This episode is 31:46 long.

This episode was published on Aug 4, 2025.

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