A boy is born Black in hard-times Georgia in 1930. One of eight children, his father has a fourth-grade education, the family is poor and the boy has a speech impediment that will be with him his entire life. Aspiring to be like the entrepreneurs whose small “Negro” businesses dot Atlanta’s then-thriving Auburn Avenue, he opens a shoeshine stand outside his family’s home.

From that patch of ground, Herman J. Russell went on to become a major construction and real-estate developer, and one of America’s wealthiest and most successful Black business owners. His H.J. Russell and Co. built the Atlanta headquarters of the Coca-Cola Co. and of Georgia Pacific; Mercedes Benz Stadium, home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons; and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington.

More than six years after his death at 83, Russell’s three children, Michael Russell Sr., 56; Jerome Russell, 58; and Donata Ross are in top posts at the company. Five of his eight grandchildren also work there. The family has prospered thanks to a unique moment: In post-civil rights Atlanta, corporations partnered with newly elected Black leadership. Minority-owned firms were assured a percentage of government contracts. As the city asserted itself as a mecca for ambitious Black Americans, Russell was building wealth that would sustain generations.

White citizens in America have six times the wealth of Black citizens, and the inability to build and pass down wealth is a major reason. In the new season of the podcast “The Pay Check,” Bloomberg explores the racial wealth gap and what it means for our society.

“My father was definitely at the right place, at the right time, with the right personality and determination and drive,” said Donata Russell Ross, 62, who is the chief executive officer of Concessions International, a family-owned airport food and beverage business. “Construction was the core. My father was a master plasterer, and he learned from his father, who was a master plasterer. But he was always an entrepreneur and he just understood how to make a dollar and the importance of controlling your own destiny.”

Few Black families have managed to parlay such skills into intergenerational wealth, said Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Discrimination, redlining, racist banking policies and a lack of business capital conspired against them, he said.

“A lot of people say wealth is a reflection of character,” Perry said. “No, wealth is a reflection of policy and who benefits from it.”

Intergenerational wealth has eluded most Black Americans. Some 17% of White households, in a 2019 Federal Reserve Board survey, said they expected to receive an inheritance of about $195,000 at the median, according to the Brookings Institution. Only 6% of Black households were expecting an inheritance, the median of which was $100,000.

White families in 2019 had median wealth of $189,100—about eight times that of Black families, according to the Federal Reserve. With the vestiges of 246 years of slavery still festering in America, trying to catch-up is like trying to compete against a baseball team that starts each inning on third base.

The Russells are managing to win. Still closely held, H.J. Russell and Co. today employs 1,200 people, and generates about $180 million in annual revenue. The company is managing a $5 billion construction project at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport, where it has been involved in various projects for over 40 years. It has a $100 million construction project at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and is building stations for a planned bullet train between Dallas and Houston. There are multifamily homes and entertainment venue projects in the works.

Russell’s descendants who run the firm are focused not only on growth, but on longevity.

“Ninety percent of wealth is lost by the third generation,” said 32-year-old Zane Major, who is operations executive at Concessions International. “Not only do we owe it to our grandfather to be the people that he wanted us to be, but we really owe it to the community and others around us to show positive examples of what is possible.”

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