Dr. Andrea L. Harris

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Andrea L. Harris grew up in the small, rural community of Henderson, North Carolina along with her younger brother, Andrew L. Harris, Jr. She is the eldest daughter of Dr. Andrew L. Harris (one of the first black dentists in the tri-county area) and Geneva Harris, a high school business teacher. She graduated from Henderson Institute in 1966 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Bennett College in 1970. Growing up in rural North Carolina during the heart of the Civil Rights movement, she witnessed a great deal of inequity and injustice. It was during this pivotal time that Andrea decided to forgo graduate school to be “a part of saving the world” as a community activist and organizer.  

In 1971, during the first year of integration, Ms. Harris followed in her mother’s footsteps as an educator at West End School and taught sixth grade. In the early 1970s, Andrea led a rural multi-county community action agency. At age twenty-three, she led a staff of more than 120 full time employees administering Head Start programs to over 500 children, employing more than 1000 young people each summer, providing crisis relief, and workforce development to adults. 

During this period, Andrea established the first rural transportation program in the state for older adults, organized community gardens, youth groups, and established a housing rehabilitation program. She also led the initial filing and funding effort to sue the State of North Carolina and help retain community action programs. By the early 1980’s, Harris responded to a call from a colleague to join him in the North Carolina Department of Commerce working in the state’s Minority Business Development Agency.

Andrea and her colleagues recognized the need for an external entity to engage in data and policy analyses, information dissemination and communications, overall economic advocacy for racial and ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans and women.  By the mid-1980s, Dr. Harris and her colleagues co-founded the North Carolina Institute of Minority Economic Development (The Institute). She began her employment with the Institute in 1988 and became its president in 1990.  

During this same period, Harris chaired the initial Community Reinvestment Act Steering Committee in the state joining with other advocacy organizations in challenging bank mergers based on lending to minority and low-moderate income (LMI) neighborhoods. Though minority businesses were not a part of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Dr. Harris was successful in getting minority and women owned businesses, supplier diversity, and diversity included in all agreements in North Carolina. Harris was able to include partnerships and support of Historically Black Colleges and Universities in three new bank agreements in 2017. As a result, corporations moved from less than $25 million in supplier diversity to more than $250 million within less than 24 months. 

Under Dr. Harris’s tutelage with the Institute, the state of North Carolina went from doing less than 0.01% of its business with minorities and women to 8% - 15%. As a result of Dr. Harris’s tireless efforts, North Carolina’s minority and women’s business public policies and practices became a national model. Ms. Harris’s efforts resulted in the agency building a successful collaborate to increase the net worth cap placed by minority owned businesses by Congress. The impact of these public policies can no longer be fully tracked statewide. Dr. Andrea Harris played an integral part in helping to change Congressional policy under the HBCU Capital Loan Program that encumbered most of the assets of HBCUs with financing under the program.  

In 2014, Andrea Harris retired as President of the Institute and went on to serve as a Senior Fellow at Self-Help until her health declined. As a Senior Fellow at Self-Help, Dr. Harris was afforded the opportunity to work on a broad base of projects, particularly in support of minority businesses and low net worth/underserved communities. As President Emeritus of the Institute, she coordinated the North Carolina HBCU Alumni Leadership Roundtable as a continuation of the work she began to support HBCUs. 

Andrea Harris was small in stature but a forced to be reckoned with. She was always willing to be a “voice” for the underrepresented, a broker for change and equality for all.  Andrea Harris dedicated her life to breaking down barriers of socio-economic, gender, and racial barriers to protect ownership and economic opportunity for ALL people.  

Dr. Harris has served on many boards over the last four decades, including: Gateway CDC, Vance County Economic Development Commission, Fifth Third Bank,  Vance Granville Community College, Vance County ABC, the North Carolina State University National Advisory Board of the Institute for Emerging Issues, Bennett College Board of Trustees, DOT Office of Civil Rights Advisory Council, North Carolina Central University Public Administration Program Advisory Council, and gubernatorial appointments to the NC Rural Infrastructure Authority Board and the Governor’s Historically Underutilized Business Advisory Council. She was a member of the Oxford-Henderson Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and a life member of the NAACP. Andrea Harris was a member of Kesler Temple AME Zion Church, where she served as a trustee.

Dr. Andrea L. Harris is the recipient of numerous awards and recognition.  She received the highest award granted by the State of North Carolina, the Long Leaf Pine, from three Governors (Hunt, Martin and McCrory). Harris received the Abe Venable Lifetime Achievement Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency, awards of various entities including HBCUs, and an honorary doctorate from her beloved alma mater, Bennett College. In February 2018, Dr. Harris received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Duke University Samuel Dubois Cook Society.