An Interview with Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman

By Beverly Oleka ‘25

Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman was the Academy’s keynote speaker for the 32nd MLK Day celebration. She is a Ghanian-born American racial justice activist and currently a doctoral student in Public Policy and Economics at Harvard University. In an exclusive interview with staff writer Beverly Oleka, she discussed her book The Black Agenda, released on Feb. 10, as well as her personal experiences.

You grew up as a child of African immigrants, and in a previous podcast you brought up this important point on the myth of missing Black talent. How should we advocate for people to see Africa and other marginalized continents as more than just imperial relationships?

I think it boils down to the question, “Are people treating Africans as humans?” If you are, then you’re not going to just bulldoze your way into a country and then expect people to fall in line. You’re going to have some level of relationship with the people who are already living there so that it’s a mutually agreeable relationship and partnership. But again, like a lot of these organizations, and a lot of these countries and imperial powers, I think their prior priority is profit. How much money can I make? How much power can I retain? How do I maximize those two things to my benefit? And so again, I don’t know, it’s a huge question. I hope that someone in your generation can also help us find out a couple more answers around it, but those are my initial thoughts on the matter.

You stated once that you’re able to promote diversity because you’re uniquely equipped with the right tools based on your life experiences. As you put it, you speak the truth because you have lived that truth. What are those tools and what experiences brought them about?

I think I mentioned this during my keynote at Phillips Exeter about a week or so ago, and I talked a little bit about how I attended a predominantly white institution (PWI) and the story behind that is that I was part of the head start program when I was a very, very young child. I was five years old. And so for those who don’t know, Head Start is a government program for low come working families. And depending on where you are in terms of your income, essentially what happens is you are eligible for this government program, which then takes care of your kids while you’re at work. So that’s kind of the situation there. So I graduated from Head Start, and right before I graduated from Head Start, my family informed me that I was being selected to be part of the inaugural class at a small private school. And so essentially I ended up basically in a PWI environment from age six, so you can imagine how that would shape one’s experience. 

At the age of seven or so, I was very acute of my racial identity. I knew I was Black and I knew that that was very different from people. And at times I thought that was very bad, right. I remember one distinct experience coming home and asking my mom, “Why can’t I be white?” because at the time I was the only Black girl in my entire class— there was one other Black student in the class. I felt very othered. That being said, a lot of times people say, “Anna, how are you so good at going into these corporate spaces, going to these academic spaces, and cutting through the noise?” 

The truth is, the tool that I acquired from a very, very young age was how to navigate white spaces when you’re the only non-white person in the room. I had to get very good at understanding how to communicate, how I was feeling, and also talk about my racial identity, which didn’t come until much later in my academics.

The tools that I picked up from was, one, it’s really important to be very honest about your boundaries. So letting people know what they can and cannot do around you. And that’s not something I picked up until I would say my junior or senior year of high school. Back in the day, I would let people touch my hair. I thought at first it was some sort of endearment, but then I later learned that I was actually more so out of being othered. It was another way of othering me. I think the other thing that I learned is that it’s important to voice any concerns you have. Sometimes it’s important to be creative about the way that you voice that. 

For example, when I was in elementary school, I was very interested in centering perspectives from students. This is me as a fifth grader. So, I decided to start a newspaper in my fifth grade class. Now it’s turned into the student newsletter at my school that I’ve long left, but essentially that came out of wanting to make a change. And so that means that, you’re looking to your left ear, right, and seeing what peers align with, what you want to do. That’s something that I learned and took with me. And now I’ve gotten decently good at it. Now I can bring together voices that are from different parts of the country and still manage to get one idea across, or one overall ethos across. 

Those are some of the tools that have picked up that help me navigate those spaces. But most importantly, I just think about finding my authentic self and being unapologetic about that, and this is definitely for my Black and brown girls. A lot of times we are always kind of chastised for doing that. Please stand in your truth. Please stand in who you are, the amazingness that you are. 

A lot of times, people are very much threatened by us showing up and being ourselves because they don’t expect us to do that. I have an obligation to folks who came before me to be unapologetic about who I am, and doing it in a way that can bring and bridge much more communities around me, but also bring in an entirely new generation that will just do it automatically. I always see this work as iterative, meaning that I’m part of a long lineage of folks who are pushing the boundary. 

What you just said resonated with me, because growing up, I lived in the south side and in a low income family. And then, during elementary years I got put into a private school of basically all white girls. I’ve always had such a hard time navigating the space because it’s overwhelming at that age to know what “Black” is. Here at Exeter, I’m trying to find my own identity. How can you take time to learn more about your racial identity when the world wants Black girls to move at such a fast pace?

Let me address what you first said. I am exactly the same way. Let me give you some context: I started out at this private school. I was on full scholarship. When the principal, who awarded me the full scholarship, the same principal who selected me for the school itself left, he ensured that I had full scholarship until I graduated. So the interesting thing was, you know, at the age of like six, seven, eight, nine, 10, I was going to this prestigious school and then I would go back home to my low income neighborhood where it was mostly Black, mostly brown. It was a nice neighborhood, but people didn’t have money and I didn’t come for money.

When I graduated, I went to another private school, and this was from middle school through high school graduation. That was another level of wealth that I didn’t even know existed, and that was also jarring. So you would notice, when you go to school, you’d see people rocking Coach and Gucci. Like that’s just what they have in their closet. And I’d be like, “I’m just getting my coat from the Burlington Co. factory.” I didn’t know what Canada Goose jackets were until I came to Harvard for the first time. I came for a fellowship earlier, and I was like, “Why is that he wearing that jacket?” Someone told me that that’s like one of the nicest jackets you could possibly get. And I was like, “Oh, I thought he got nice jackets from Burlington or something.”  I didn’t know the tier of jackets that you could get.

That being said, I think to your point about finding your identity, especially in these spaces, I didn’t realize how critical this was. But surrounding yourself with other Black and brown people who are in these spaces is really, really important. Like it’s of utmost importance. And I realized this when I was getting ready to graduate from high school but also when I was in college.It’s just really critical to be in community with other people who are from a marginalized identity and they don’t necessarily need to be Black, but bonus points if they are. I think there’s a unique understanding of how you navigate the space, based on your race, and your gender identity.

 Then, when you add the element of immigrant status, right, it complicates things because not all Black people in America experience racial identity the same way. And this is something I’ve been asked about, you know, you’re a Ghanaian-American, How do you sort of grapple with that in light of being Black in America? And I say, ‘well, you know, I’m African American meaning that I don’t have descendants who were formerly enslaved.’ But I identify with the plight of Black folks in America, and I empathize deeply with Black Americans, because I think a lot of times what ends up happening is, you’ll see this a lot in some immigrant communities among the Black diaspora, folks will diminish the value that Black Americans have added to the diaspora by saying things like, “oh yeah.” You know, like kind of flattening them to their stereotypes, right?

But I think it’s really critical to recognize that each of us have a part to play in the diaspora. For me, Black Americans have played such a significant part. The only reason that we are able to talk today is because Black Americans have fought the good fight in civil rights and have actually made room for us to even exist in this country. I think that recognizing that racial identity is not a monolith, it’s gonna be an ever evolving thing. For me, I’ve become more aware of my racial identity over time, but it definitely started with some pivotal moments. I would say reading books like The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore, or there’s a lot of recommended books that I have at the end of The Black Agenda.

Things like the “1619 Project,” things like How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith. These are books that really help give you a sense of context and how you operate within that context. I think for me, I’m not at the point where everything’s political and everything’s laced with racial identity, whether people like it or not. And when I operate from that angle, it now colors everything I do. Every question that I ask, every type of research idea that I want to put out there, it’s almost always involved in bias discrimination. 

As a major in economics and math, what are some common problems you encountered in the field around the assumptions people have about financial literacy in people of color?

The reason why I didn’t major in math initially was because I had a teacher in high school tell me that he thought I couldn’t major in math because I asked too many questions. Who’s laughing now? I realized that I really enjoyed numbers. I liked the way they can be constructed and manipulated to really tell a story about what’s going on. I had an opportunity as an undergrad when I was a biology major to do some data work at a lab at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine. That’s what led me into data numbers, the reemergence of my interest in math. And so bringing it back to your question, it’s funny that when someone first sees me, they say that I don’t look like a math major. Take that as you will. The biggest thing around economics is that it combines math and social science. It really provides people a very unique toolkit to understand the world through an empirical lens. 

What I mean by that is that we could put data to a social problem and extrapolate some sort of outcome that has a meaningful impact on a community. I take this work very, very seriously. Meaning that I’m not gonna be out here willy-nilly asking questions just for the sake of it. And there’s people who do that. They’ll be like, are our jails beneficial? Let’s find out. And let’s say you do find jails are beneficial. What communities is that going to disproportionately impact? You gotta think about the context in which your question is operating in before you ask that question. Is it gonna perpetuate harm or is it gonna put us in a better position with respect to what society is going through?

 I think a lot of times people assume that Black and brown folks are not financially literate. I don’t know where this came from because we make do with what we have all the time. This idea of, “We have to tell them how to invest in the stock market.” Sure. You can tell us that, but investing in the stock market predicates, are you having an existing amount of wealth? And being able to do that, regularly to make a buck. Perhaps instead of telling us, or putting us in financial literacy sessions, you should really be addressing the systemic reasons as to why financial literacy is even necessary in the first place. And one thing I always tell people too, is that it’s not enough to just be financially literate, to understand how to put your taxes down or navigate financial aid. Those things are very important, but it’s also important to recognize economic literacy, meaning that you need to understand how the economy works, to really understand how these different mechanisms come into play in the first place. 

What’s usually happening in Black and brown communities economically is a precursor to what happens in the national economy. And this is what Black and brown economists have been talking about for quite some time, so it’s really important to listen to those individuals and essential those individuals, which is why they’re in the book in the first place, right. I intentionally chose Black economists for this reason because people don’t listen to them and oftentimes their analyses and sort of their pre-analysis about what’s going on in the economy kind of gives us the insight into what’s going to happen next. And so that’s kind of my huge feel into why economic is important and sort of how it plays a role into my own journey

In terms of economics, what do you personally like about doing the ops that you do? Like economics and math related? Do you have any fond memories?

 I would say the most exciting thing about economics is the impact that you can have on public discourse. For me, that’s really, really awesome. 

. I think that at the end of the day, I really wanna be an economist of the people, meaning that I wanna be somebody who translates the data in such a way that people can just pick it up and say, okay, here’s what I think is important and here’s what I disagree with. But they’re able to get the highlights and the big points right out of the article [or paper] I write. And that’s also the ethos of The Black Agenda book as well.

For some people that was more challenging than for others, but ultimately, that was essentially what I ended up doing. For me, that’s been the biggest thing; getting excited about articles, about discourse over Twitter, and a number of different areas as well. I think also just meeting people who are as excited about these policy issues as I am is very edifying too. So that’s a little bit about me.

I read pieces from The Black Agenda, and I just love the fact that the language isn’t using too much jargon, because I feel like when it comes to books that try to focus on social solutions to problems, it’s often very complicated. I remember reading the book, and especially regarding the title, I was wondering what it means and what some of your inspirations were for writing this book?

Honestly, if I could rename the book, I would say “A Black Agenda” because the original title does not encompass all the different perspectives that I really wanted to include. I wanted to include K-12 teachers, custodians, and just ordinary citizens. I think when we talk about The Black Agenda, we’re really talking about items that need to be accomplished and different big topics we need to check off and get through. I do think the book does actually do a pretty good job of getting at that, meaning that we have a wide array of topics that are being addressed here and many of them are intertwined and interlinked. 

If you read each section, it flows very seamlessly. It seems like they’re having a conversation. It’s like you’re sitting at a round table, hearing people riff off each other. I think that’s just a testament to the fact that Black experts often are operating from this overall understanding that racial identity is intersecting with a lot of these systemic problems that we’re experiencing. It’s imperative that we address that as quickly and effectively as possible. I’m just really happy that the book exists. It’s a bit nerve wracking. 

I really hope that other young people have just as many opportunities to do the same. I think it’s really important for us to have our voices out there and to usher in voices as well because we have something to say and we have ways to say it. I would say to your point about this being readable that that was intentional. I did not want this book to be hard to understand. And so I take critiques very seriously that say this was a little bit difficult to understand. I wish I could have made that more easier to understand, but ultimately I think that’s been the goal.

How do we write these policy topics in a way that laymen can understand and even advocate for in their own local communities? This is also something I didn’t realize an international audience would be interested in. Folks in the UK are also very interested in this and I thought to myself that that made sense. If you’re a Black person in Western society, you’re going to have an invested interest in this book. 

With respect to the title itself, I wanted something catchy. The Black Agenda is pretty catchy. The other thing is that I wanted something that encompassed a wide variety of topics and that wasn’t targeting one particular niche.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that there’s not only Black Americans that are featured in the book. Though the majority of experts featured are Black Americans, it’s actually many different people from across the Black diaspora within America. But what I love about each of their essays is that they center on the edifying of their nation of Black Americans. They’re looking at Black Americans as a proxy for progress and ensuring that Black Americans are central to any solutions that we’re making moving forward. That’s the biggest thing that I’m focused on right now. How do we construct solutions and the ways that we’re thinking about moving forward from the perspective of starting with Black America. So it was intentional to have Black Americans, it was intentional to have Black women. It was intentional to have Black folks who identified with other genders as part of this conversation because we’re all human and that was ultimately the ethos of the book. We’re all human. Therefore we should be seen as such.

 In your book, you write pieces about solutions that Black experts have developed to aid with climate change, healthcare wellness, and a variety of other issues. In those essays, you bring up an amazing point about critical race theory and looking at diversity in schools. What do you think the pros and cons are of teaching critical race theory in schools?

Thinking about how racial identity is seen as the overall theme throughout the entire book, I would say that the way educators can teach this book is to integrate this into their syllabi. There’s a lot of different experts that folks can cite moving forward. That means that if you wanna teach about climate, consider looking at the climate chapter and picking a couple of those essays, then looking at their sources. Many of the sources that folks cited were other Black and brown folks as well.

It’s important then to populate your syllabi with information that is authored by Black and brown people. I think when talking about critical race theory in the educational setting a lot of times, they get confused with it a little bit. People who push back against [teaching critical race theory] often are really afraid of being reflected poorly upon through any sort of teaching that talks about the realities and the brutalities [of their history]. This book is present-focused, but it’s also future-focused.

For folks who  are struggling to grapple with American history with respect to what’s going on with the “1619 Project” and that sort of thing, I would say maybe you might want to start here first and then see how you feel about it. This book actually does a really great job of contextualizing things within the history of America and within the realities that Black Americans faced. But it also houses what we’re looking forward to. You might be able to see the connection between the “1619 Project” and what’s happening in the current day, then also see where things could go. What I love about this book is that it bridges those three strands together in a way that allows us to operate on the spectrum of ‘how do we look at racial progress?’ even beyond this moment. 

I want to see that people have this book on their syllabus and that folks are reading essays from it. But more importantly, I think teachers and educators themselves need to prioritize work like this because these individuals are their colleagues. People will say that [they] don’t know who’s doing work on racial identity and climate. Are you looking at Black faculty members? Are you looking at Black teachers? Are you looking at Black folks? Who are you in the space? The hope is that this [collection] will propel you to choose others and look for others as well.

Are there ways that we can identify barriers and then intervene and eliminate those barriers?

Your racial identity is a big, big thing. It’s gonna take an entire lifetime to really feel secure in that. But my hope is that y’all will get there sooner than I did. 

In high school, in ninth grade, I wasn’t fully aware of who I was as a Black woman in that space. And a lot of times I would put on sort of like a caricature of myself to navigate the space. You don’t have to pretend to be a version of yourself. You can just be you. And if people have a problem with that, you can ask them why it impacts them. Why do you have a problem with that? And automatically that disarms their entire reasoning. You don’t have to figure it out right now. But again, look to folks that are doing this kind of work that are visible to you, but also look to books and other mediums to educate you in the context in which you’re living in.

Do you believe that having just one person of color in the room truly shows that we are generating diversity in progress or that we are lacking diverse voices at the table?

No, obviously. I always think it’s funny when people say, “Oh, well, you know, I hired a Black person,” and I’m like, “Good for you.” I think the biggest thing here, and this is kinda what I talked about in my speech as well, is it’s not enough to just treat diversity as a thing that you have to handle on the side. It’s very, very incumbent on those who are in the organization, or in the entity, or in the institution to integrate diversity into the culture. It should be the fabric in which your institution is operating under, right? It should be the context. It should be the air you breathe.

I think a lot of times when people say, “I can’t find Black talent, I don’t know if there are any Black people who wanna do this.” I can’t help but think that they’re clearly bird boxing this, right? I think that for your generation, what I would challenge y’all to do is to ask individuals and organizations and institutions, ‘Why do you have blinders on?’ That’s what I’m doing right now, but I’m hoping that y’all will get more answers. It gives us more innovative solutions, more bold solutions. I would say it leads to more beneficial, effective, and efficient solutions. That makes a lot of sense, right? If you are dealing with a problem, you want to make sure that you’re dealing with the problem from all sides. If you’re only dealing from one side, well, then you’re gonna have one solution to one side of the problem. You’re not gonna have a solution that encompasses all the different sides of a problem. So that’s kind of what we get at when we say it’s not enough to have one or two or a few Black and brown faces in the room.

 And I think the other question that people don’t like to ask is why is that space white to begin with right? Like, why is it so white? I don’t know, that’s a question because there’s a little bit of an assumption there. People say that the only people who are qualified to do this work or to offer these perspectives or to give us some sort of leadership or guidance can only be from this group. And oftentimes that group is singular in that it’s white, it’s male, it’s wealthy. Why? I don’t think only white male wealthy guys have good ideas, definitely as history shows, right? Societies that have existed and been built out and have flourished without any intervention from a white wealthy guy. I think that’s also another question to ask. That’s a question that I hope that my generation alongside your generation will be able to answer in a way that allows the next generation to be completely freed of having these conversations about why a group may want another Black person here? It’s because Black people are actually a substantial part of the population and you can’t just ignore them. Then also recognizing too, that diversity exists even within the marginalized groups. It’s not enough to have just one East-Asian person. You might want to have someone from Southeast Asia, right? This idea, again, of attacking a problem from all sides and making sure that we’re the most all encompassing solution that we can possibly have, so that our solution is actually fitting the communities that absolutely need it.

Another thing that caught my eye was in the foreword. Written by Dr. Tracy McMillan, she starts with a very powerful and important statement, “no matter where you show up on the spectrum of Blackness, the United States owes you something.” It’s an intriguing statement, because for decades, it’s always been the opposite, with white Europeans believing we owed them something then enslaving us. In your book, you and other Black experts discuss ways to create solutions and involve people in these diverse dialogues. How can we consistently make sure that we’re moving forward in a way that we also acknowledge what’s been lost?

At the end of the day, we move forward by centering Black expertise and Black voices beyond Black History month and diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s not enough to invite Black people when it’s convenient for you. There needs to be a little bit of discomfort. I think that people are uncomfortable with hearing what Black people have to say, because they know that Black people have a deep understanding of how the system works because we navigate it every day. But more importantly, we also have a deeper understanding of the flaws of the system because we are harmed by them every day. If we are actually bringing Black people into the conversation, squarely at the center, they’re the ones driving the narrative. 

Someone said to me once, we’ll know that we’ve achieved racial equity when Black people can just be average and it won’t harm us. It’s a very poignant statement. And I think that it is also the root of the problem. If we have to work twice as hard just to be seen as human, we have an issue. If we can show people that we can be on the same level playing field in the mainstream and public discourse, perhaps that makes an even more compelling case for why our humanity is of the utmost importance. And so for me, that’s been the biggest thing — that we have to push forward with respect to accelerating Black voices. Our humanity is absolutely undeniable. 

No one is talking about the continent of Africa, for example, which currently has the youngest population in the entire world. We have to talk about it because they’re humans, they have lives and families and experiences that absolutely need to be honored. They cannot be a footnote. I think a lot of times, history has treated Black people as a footnote. That’s why people have been able to walk all over us, because they have used the footnote mentality to justify atrocities and harms that have harmed us for generations. We’re at a point now where a lot of us are saying we’re done, and now there’s other people who are also seeing these harms done to Black people. This book is an iteration of the many that have come before it, but it’s also the beginning of many more works that will come after it. I’m very, very excited for what this is going to bring.

How do you feel that your book is being published? What are you anticipating? What are you looking forward to?

I’m nervous, to be frank with you. It’s a politically charged book. Anything with Black people as the focus is going to be contentious in public discourse because people have different views on Black people. But I’m also excited, because one, the book is not about me. I’m the face of the book, but really, I hope to be the face only for the next few weeks. Then I want people to invite all the different contributors who are featured in the book to their podcasts and to their TV shows and all that stuff. I really hope that people see these voices for what they are.

They’re not unique in that they’re Black experts. They’re unique because they’ve been featured in this particular publication, but there’s many more Black experts, activists, advocates, teachers, and professionals out there that are doing the hard work.

I’m looking forward to seeing students like yourselves reading this, I’ll be frank with you. I had no idea that there would be an entire market of high school students who would be interested in this for me, that is incredibly affirming. I’m just so excited that y’all are excited about that.

I really want a lot of young people to get their hands on this book, to see that there’s other voices that are part of the Black and brown communities that they’re a part of, but also to see that there are solutions being put forth that hopefully your generation will carry out to fruition. I’m humbled ultimately, and grateful for this opportunity to just talk with you and also just have this book out there so people can learn more from these Black experts and the work that they’re doing.