Powhatan Today
April 18, 2007

From Ballsville to the Ivy League

Powhatan native Lillian Lambert was first black woman
to graduate from Harvard Business School

By Richard Carrier

Lillian Lincoln Lambert was the first African American woman to graduate from Harvard Business School. But this quiet and unassuming native of Powhatan Country was not even aware of her pioneer status when she earned her way onto the prestigious Boston campus in 1967.

"There were six black students in my class and I was the only female, but I didn't know I was the first black female student to attend Harvard Business School," she said.

Lillian Lambert's journey to a Harvard MBA and on to a highly successful career as an entrepreneur began as Lillian Hobson in Ballsville. In this pre-integration rural community she attended the two-room Ballsville Elementary School and graduated from the segregated Pocahontas High School in 1958. "My mother was my role model. She was a great proponent of education. We didn't have a lot but I loved to read and she always found a way for me to do that."

But Lillian Lambert would not heed the call to further her education for some time after she graduated from high school. "Everybody was going to New York and my dream was to leave this little town and go to the big city, so I went too." She was sorely disappointed when she got there. "I lived in a crummy little one bedroom apartment with my cousin and I couldn't find a job." After three attempts, she falsified her experience records and got a clerical job at Macy's Department Store. Two years later, she had her fill of the big city life and returned to Ballsville to re-examine her life.

On her way to visit a relative in New Jersey she stopped in Richmond to talk with a persuasive aunt and was convinced that Washington D.C. was where her future lay. A phone call to D.C. got her a place to stay with a friend of her aunt, and Lillian was on her way to the nation's capitol. "It was purely accidental, like so many things in my life" said Mrs. Lambert.

While working at a clerical job during the day, Lillian took night classes at D.C. Teachers' College. She soon determined that the six to nine semester hours that she could squeeze in at night were going to make for an extremely long road to a degree. "I needed to find a way to go to school full time."

Howard University in D.C. was attractive to her, but how to manage the financial commitment? Howard had some scholarships available and she applied for those. The new National Defense Loans were another possible source of funding and she applied for those also. Both came through for her and as she continued to work 20 hours a week, she could afford to be a full time student.

Mrs. Lambert graduated from Howard University in 1966 with a degree in business management and that might have been the end of her education had it not been for one of her professors. H. Naylor Fitzhugh, Harvard class of 1933, saw the potential in Lillian Lambert and encouraged her to apply at Harvard Business School to pursue an MBA.

Lillian agreed to apply. Her entrance exam scores were not acceptable. Again with her typically quiet determination, Lillian went back to work full time and also worked on her test deficiencies. When she took the entrance exam the following year she was accepted.

"Harvard had no facilities for female students so we were housed across the river at Ratcliffe. Each day we had to get dressed up in skirts and heels; sweats and shorts were absolutely not allowed then, and walk across the river to class." The work was "extremely trying" and "I had a non-existent social life. It was impossible to comprehend how well you were doing academically because the only grades you were given were on a midterm and final exam each semester."

Lillian's class of 100 students included only two other females (both white) and one of those did not return after the Thanksgiving break. She too was discouraged and considered dropping out. "I often wondered why was I here," she admitted. But the second year was "a little better with better course choices" and in 1969 Lillian Lincoln Lambert accepted the first MBA Harvard University had ever awarded to an African American woman.

Armed with this prestigious degree, she struggled to find a significant career. "I don't recall any one seriously recruiting me." For the next six years she worked as a stock broker for the Sterling Institute and even taught some college courses. In 1976 she decided to make her own future in the business world and founded her own company, Centennial One. As a commercial cleaning company, Centennial One targeted a customer base of large office building and other commercial operations, including airports. Based in Landover, Md., Lillian grew the company to $20 million in annual sales. She sold Centennial One in 2001.

Lillian Lambert now divides her time between her home in Mechanicsville and her home in Florida. At 67 Years old, she continues to work in real estate. "I'll probably never retire completely," she said.