January 2000

Robert F. Smith founded Vista Equity Partners in 2000, building it into a private equity firm managing over $100 billion in assets. Smith became the wealthiest Black American in history with a net worth exceeding $8 billion, and in 2019 pledged $34 million to pay off the entire student debt of Morehouse College's graduating class, the largest gift in the HBCU's history.

Robert F. Smith founded Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm focused on enterprise software companies, which would grow to manage over $50 billion in assets. Smith became the wealthiest Black American in U.S. history, demonstrating that Black entrepreneurs could compete and excel at the very highest levels of global finance.

Swoopes became the first WNBA player to have a Nike signature shoe (Air Swoopes, 1995) and won multiple WNBA championships with Houston, making her the definitive face of women's basketball in the 1990s.

Throughout the early 2000s Floyd Mayweather Jr. compiled an undefeated professional record while winning world titles in multiple weight classes, establishing himself as one of the most technically skilled boxers in history and a transcendent pay-per-view attraction.

New York author Colson Whitehead published The Intuitionist, a critically acclaimed debut novel blending noir and allegory about race and progress in America. It established him as one of the most original voices in contemporary American literature.