Luke Lawal, Jr. on his game-changing HBCU Buzz and his new book
Rolling out sat down with HBCU Buzz founder and author of Rich Black, Poor Black, Luke Lawal Jr about the new book and how HBCU Buzz has helped to change how these fabled institutions are viewed.
Tell us about your new book.
It’s a long time coming, I’ve been working on a book I would say about three years now, it’s funny, because I socialized the characters in the book trying to elevate the Black community, my community, my home (Prince George’s County, Maryland) and tried to bridge the gap between financial wealth and how we look at wealth. So the book is an incredible story of two characters and how they generate wealth and it’s a reflection of all the lessons I’ve learned and all of the information that I can give back to my community on how we can generate wealth
How does your ongoing partnership with Diageo help to keep the legacy of HBCUs alive?
Honestly, the past few years working with Diageo has been phenomenal. Learning how we can use their platform to educate and uplift our community has been fun. When you think of our 30 under 30, the mission of that is to showcase, highlight, and celebrate all the wonderful talent within our community. When you think of the multi-hyphenate people within our space, Diageo is just giving us that platform to highlight them, celebrate them, and showcase all the wonderful talents that come from our community.
Talk about Society 2030 and the $10 million endowment that Diageo is pledging.
In our community, it’s rare that you see opportunities where companies are investing within our black spaces. For us, that’s so huge because we need resources to create change and growth. And what Diageo’s done is really invest in our space. It’s really authentic and genuine. I think when you think about the HBCU space in 2023, everyone wants to invest. The question has always been ‘What have you done for HBCUs in the past few years?’
How does HBCU buzz continue to change the landscape of HBCUs and how they are viewed?
When I started HBC Buzz in 2011, we focused on telling our stories and enriching our community. Fast forward to today, we are more focused on partnerships and creating opportunities for our community where we’re bringing big brands and saying, ‘Hey, how can you highlight all the things that our students are doing? How can you create opportunities for our graduates? And most importantly, how can you use your platform to uplift and enrich all the wonderful things that our HBCU grads are doing?’ Our partnership with Diageo highlights all the wonderful things that our 30 under 30 are doing. Brands like Nike are highlighting all the yard runners on the different campuses.
