Andrea Harris, Minority Economic Development Trailblazer, Passes
Henderson, NC – Andrea Harris’ life has been dedicated to overcoming barriers to economic growth and opportunity. She passed this morning (May 20) at the age of 72. She was co-founder and Senior Fellow of the North Carolina Institute of Minority Economic Development, headquartered in Durham, NC. Davis Royster Funeral Service in Henderson is handling arrangements, which are incomplete at this time.
Growing up in the rural community of Henderson, NC, during the heart of the Civil Rights movement, she had seen more than her share of inequality. So, after graduating from Bennett College, she chose to become a community organizer, rather than attend graduate school.
“I decided to be a part of saving the world,” she recalls. “I thought I was invincible.”
Two years later, at age 23, Harris became Executive Director of a Community Action Agency in Henderson. She was the youngest community agency director in the nation, supervising 120 full-time employees and helping fight poverty across three rural communities. Harris stepped out of that role after 6 years to begin representing lower-income, older adults throughout the southeast and in Washington through the regional Office of Community Services. Her work helped the participation levels of minority and elderly in conferences on national aging policy more than ten-fold.
When she was tired of the constant travel, Harris took a job with the North Carolina state government. Although the slow pace of progress frustrated her, she found the experience provided a new direction for her work.
In 1986, she and two colleagues co-founded the N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting minority and women businesses. There were then fewer than 30,000 minority businesses in North Carolina; today, there are more than 132,000.
Harris says the Institute’s work is founded on the belief that home- and business-ownership are the two most effective means for building economic assets and expanded access to opportunities.
“Investing in populations with limited net worth is far less costly than the negative social consequences of economic isolation,” she said. “We must work towards widely shared prosperity as an economic imperative.”
Spectacular Magazine honored Andrea Harris with the Spectacular Magazine Woman of the Year – Lifetime Achievement award in 2014.
For years, because of Ms. Harris’ vision, I encouraged my students to pursue day jobs and side hustles. During a chance encounter last Nivember, I had a chance to tell her how many of those side hustles were replacing day jobs as primary sources of income.
Like!! Great article post.Really thank you! Really Cool.
Hello there! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading this post reminds me of my good old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this post to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!