African-American Center at Harvard to Receive $10 Million Donation

Gift aimed at study of residents in poor neighborhoods in the Greater Boston area

A center at Harvard University devoted to the study of people of African descent has received a $10 million donation from its namesake, financier Glenn Hutchins, for projects including a study of poverty, inequality, and race in Greater Boston’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

The “Race, Class, and Cumulative Adversity” project will send as many as 25 students into communities in Boston and around Massachusetts to gather information for a broad inquiry into the kaleidoscope of factors shaping racial and economic inequality.

Hutchins stated that he believes there have not been enough resources devoted to investigating those challenges, which the nation is struggling to understand.

His gift includes $2 million for the research at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, will be aimed at influencing public policy. The remainder will go to other projects at the center.