Mark Willis, president of the Chase Manhattan Foundation, led a session on expanding access to credit and raising private capital, and Kennedy School professor Christine Letts spoke on the performance of nonprofit organizations. There were sessions on real estate finance and development, management, and entrepreneurship with Business School professors Edward Marchant, David Thomas, and Howard Stevenson, and Harvard Associate Vice President James Hoyte spoke on community-based action in urban neighborhoods faced with environmental problems. Professor Marchant also led participants on a series of visits to local housing development projects that were the result of community and city partnerships. Former U.S. congressman Floyd H. Flake, pastor at Allen Avenue African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica, N.Y., spoke on the role of religious leadership in society. His church-based housing corporation, credit union, senior citizens center, and neighborhood preservation efforts were also the subject of one of the Institute case studies developed by program coordinator D. Pulane Evans, MBA '91, MTS '94.
Faith can build cities.
The Institute concluded with the presentation of action plans that participants created for their communities and the awarding of certificates at a Faculty Club luncheon, with closing remarks by Earl Graves Sr., publisher and CEO of Black Enterprise magazine. I know that no long-term gains can be made in our communities without the church. If the Black community is ever to be saved, it must happen through the Black church. If the Black community is to be saved, the salvation is in this room. The Summer Leadership Institute was partially funded with grants from Time Warner Inc., Lilly Endowment Inc., the Florence and John Schumann Foundation, and the Henry Luce Foundation.