Folayemi Agbede graduated from Northwestern in 2009, studying African-American Studies. She has since earned her Master’s of Arts in International Development at American University and held multiple positions in the public sector – including at the Center for American Progress and the United States Small Business Association. Agbede currently serves as a Management Analyst at USAID.
What inspired you to pursue a major or minor in the Department of African American Studies (AFAM)?
I grew up in a diasporic household with a Nigerian father and African American mother. So much of our household and the things that we orbited around were dedicated to reinforcing the value of Black life. I remember my mother taking me to see “Malcolm X” and “Sarafina!” as a child so that I could learn about global Black freedom struggles at an early age. We went to a church founded by people that emigrated to Pittsburgh through the Great Migration, that had a credit union to support economic empowerment, and my parents established a private school there to enhance the educational opportunities for local children in the historically Black communities, particularly Pittsburgh’s Hill District, surrounding the church. By the time I was 17, I found myself immersed in a renaissance of work by Black researchers, poets, novelists, artists, directors, and politicos. I knew that the many worlds in the universe of Black life were what I craved knowing more about and I was very certain that I wanted to major in African American Studies in some way. I actually transferred to Northwestern from another college in order to do that within the most intersectional, global, well-resourced, and generative space possible. The AFAM Department delivered all of that (and more) during my years there as an undergrad.
How did your studies in the AFAM department impact you personally or professionally?
In late 2019, I went back to Kresge on a Saturday, just to walk the halls of the AFAM department, and I felt so much joy at the nostalgia of my experience. The AFAM Department offered me my first visions of myself as a researcher –and complemented them with work-study opportunities– that helped me create a path for myself into management consulting. I see everything we discuss in organizational development as an opportunity to have a critical, intersectional, Black-inclusive analysis in the workplace and I have to credit the Department entirely for that. I am also able to think critically about racialized sexism and misogynoir through the critical race theory-focused education I enjoyed there. For example, when offering resources on how to navigate the disparate expectations of office housework imposed on women of color, the way that the Department taught me to look for the underlying issues in an inequality, separate them from unproductive ideas of individualism/understand them as systemic, name the roots and the effects, and think through to a countervailing solution are always at the forefront of my thinking.
Is there a specific course, event, or memory associated with the AFAM department that sticks out to you from your time at Northwestern?
Because my last name starts with A and I was graduating from the AFAM program, I led the Weinberg Class of 2009 out for our graduation convocation. Talk about pressure! Luckily, I was enthusiastically embraced by Dr. Charles Mills at the end of the most-watched walk down an aisle in my life, so it was worth the anxiety! Dr. Mills was absolutely one of the best parts of my education at Northwestern and I am still grateful — nearly fifteen years later — to have been his student. I am equally honored by all of the time that the Department’s many professors and staff took to shine their light on me.
What are you working on right now that excites you the most OR are there any accomplishments you would like to share?
Within a year of graduating from the program, I co-authored a research paper on how people of color experienced the Great Recession at the think tank I worked at the time. My two colleagues and I were among the first people to publish an analysis of that kind about the Great Recession and it has gone on to be cited as widely as Essence magazine, academic publications, and congressional testimony. The White House recently released an analysis of how imperfect competition in markets suppresses wages and compounds the inequalities faced by people of color and I really like to think that 2010 paper — and decades of work by Black economists and other heterodox thinkers — played a key part of normalizing that kind of discourse on race and the economy among the most mainstream policymakers. If I didn’t have a background in African American Studies that helped me think critically about race and capitalism, I would not have discovered economic policy, consumer finance, or organizational development as fascinating and unavoidable systems that have everything to do with how Black people live our lives around the world.
What’s a fun fact that you want to share with the Northwestern community?
A few years after graduating from the program, I saw Dr. Patillo present at a Smithsonian (I believe) and I gave her a ride to the train station afterward. Having been the most walking-est, no car-having-est college student, I felt like such an adult who was able to use her education (bestowed in part by Dr. Patillo) to thrive and offer a token of appreciation with her means. It was so great!
How do you enjoy spending your free time?
I live in the DC metro area, so there is a lot of nature to enjoy across Virginia and Maryland. I bike as well as hike a lot and try to make it a collectively cathartic experience for others as often as possible. I also collect African American cookbooks, volunteer as a mentor, and intermittently work with clients through my own small business. The pandemic taught me to value connection in a much higher way, so I love to spend a lot of my free time in conversation with loved ones. Similarly, I recently developed a love of skating — like roll bounce-JB-quad skate — and that has enabled me to connect with one of the area’s most beautiful and enduring Black communities as well. I love the incredibly joyful, multi-generational, super affable Blackness of the skate space that we enjoy together.