The Honorable Sidney Barthwell Jr. Scholarship Fund
About the Scholarship
The Honorable Sidney Barthwell Jr. Scholarship Fund serves academically promising youth from underrepresented communities, providing the resources and support to successfully complete their secondary education at Cranbrook School. A dedicated committee was formed in 2020 to advance the mission, vision, and future of this extraordinary scholarship. The objective is to eventually sponsor scholarships at other leading secondary schools across the United States.
In the fall of 1960, Jim Bailey, who grew up on his family farm near Ann Arbor, Michigan, enrolled at Cranbrook School. Bailey was a scholarship student, nervous about fitting in with all the sons of the motor industry elite.
One of the first students Jim met during orientation was Sidney Barthwell, who had enrolled at Cranbrook a year ahead of him. Like most Cranbrook students, Sidney was not on scholarship, as his father was a prominent Detroit businessman, owning a successful chain of drugstores. Like Jim, however, Sidney too was an outsider at Cranbrook—he was one of only four African American students at the exclusive boarding school.
Years later Jim, now a successful businessman and the co-founder of the global investment firm Cambridge Associates, recalls their first meeting:
“Hi, my name is Sidney,” he said. “I’m from the Big D.”
”I’m Jim,” I replied, “I’m from a little farm in the country outside Ann Arbor.”
The two quickly bonded over their outsider status and passion for basketball, and a lifelong—and unlikely—friendship was born.
In May 2020, when the Honorable Sidney Barthwell Jr. unexpectedly passed away, Jim wanted to do something to honor his cherished friend. It didn’t take him long to realize that the most fitting tribute to “Sid,” as Jim called him, would be to endow a scholarship in his name at Cranbrook School and, over time, other leading secondary schools across the United States. Bailey also endowed a scholarship in Sid’s name at Harvard Law School, where they both earned JDs.
Jim and his wife, Kelley, were motivated by the timing of Sidney’s death in May. Many African American families were struggling with the triple challenges of COVID-19, the economic fallout it engendered, and then, a few weeks after Sidney’s passing, the racial reckoning spurred by the deaths of a number of African Americans at the hands of police. They thought a scholarship could be an uplifting way to both honor their dear friend and make an impact on young, ambitious, service- and community-minded scholars following in Sidney’s footsteps.
Judy and Sidney Barthwell
Kelley and Jim Bailey
Bringing People Together
“We created this scholarship because we are in an extraordinary time period, including the pandemic and the emotions laid bare by the racial reckoning in the summer of 2020, that has led many of us to reexamine our actions and priorities,” says Jim. “It seemed that honoring a terrific person who influenced so many, including me, and who was all about bringing people together is particularly pertinent now.”
-Jim Bailey
Cranbrook, circa 1965
When Jim Bailey first stepped onto the Cranbrook campus as a nervous eighth grader, the first person to befriend him was Sid Barthwell. Growing up in rural Michigan in the 1950s and ’60s, Jim had never had a Black classmate let alone a Black friend.
The two teenagers became fast friends. At the time, Cranbrook was the elite school for the scions of auto industry executives. Jim, the son of a farmer and a kindergarten teacher, and Sidney, one of a handful of Blacks at the school, didn’t fit in.
“One reason why our friendship was so extraordinary is because our lives were so different and the opposite of the typical narrative,” says Jim. “His family was economically very successful and a pillar of the community, while I was the son of a struggling farmer who had only a high school diploma and worked in the Uniroyal tire factory at night to make ends meet.”
Their friendship flourished through the school’s basketball team, late-night talks, and visits to each other’s homes over vacations. “Until Sid, I had virtually no exposure to people of other races growing up,” says Jim. “It was eye-opening because Sid was an extraordinary person in terms of his ability to deal with all kinds of people, many of whom, due to their background, were prejudiced. It was enlightening for me to meet him and see him deal with other people in this way.”
Post-Cranbrook, the friendship flourished
After graduating from Cranbrook, the friends’ paths diverged. Jim went on to earn degrees from Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Business School—all on scholarship. He went on to co-found Cambridge Associates, a successful global investment firm, and the Plymouth Rock Company, a New England auto and homeowners insurance company. When Sidney graduated from high school, he initially entered Wayne State University. Inspired in part by the civil rights and Black Power movements, however, he moved to New York City to write poetry. He also founded a nonprofit dedicated to increasing awareness of sickle cell anemia. Sidney later graduated from Wayne State University with academic honors and a degree in political science and psychology; he was accepted to Harvard Law School in 1987.
At the time, Jim was living in Boston, running his then two firms. The old friends would get together for monthly Friday night dinners, their friendship picking up right where it left off.
Over the years, the two men stayed close. As Sidney became a practicing attorney and then a magistrate and respected community leader in Detroit, Jim grew Cambridge Associates into a global business that now advises more than $400 billion in assets and serves more than 900 endowments, foundations, pensions, and private clients in over 40 countries. He also ran the investment portfolio of Plymouth Rock along with Harvard classmate and co-Founder Jim Stone.
Jim’s and Sidney’s families both bought homes in Florida and would vacation together.
“Hi, my name is Sidney”
Years later, Jim, now a successful businessman and the co-founder of the global investment firm Cambridge Associates, recalls their first meeting.
Honoring the Legacy of The Honorable Sidney Barthwell Jr.
When Jim heard the devastating news of his friend’s death, he was determined to honor Sidney’s legacy. Given Sidney’s lifelong commitment to inclusiveness, equity, unity, and closing the opportunity gap, Jim quickly determined that the most fitting honor would be to fund a scholarship at Cranbrook for underrepresented academically promising and community-minded students with leadership potential and a passion for social justice. The Honorable Sidney Barthwell Jr. Scholarship Fund covers tuition and room and board for secondary school and will be bestowed on students who embody Sidney’s lived values of idealism, integrity, compassion, and community service.
The scholarship, administered through the Baileys’ JK Knights Foundation, will start with one recipient, but the Scholarship Committee plans to expand the scholarship as donor awareness increases. Ultimately, it could serve as a nationwide model for catalyzing equity and progress in society through a superlative education and bringing together students of all races and backgrounds.
“We envision the scholarship enabling youth to reach their full potential and empowering a new generation of social justice leaders,” says Sidney’s sister, Akosua Barthwell Evans, PhD, who serves on the Scholarship Committee. “My brother used whatever advantages he had in life not to enrich himself but to help others. This scholarship will carry forward that core value.”
A Community Builder
The Honorable Sidney Barthwell forged a successful career as an attorney and magistrate—but his entire life was about ensuring equity. He strongly believed in the transformative power of education not only to shape careers but also to empower young people to acquire the tools to build a more equitable and better world for all.
Sidney was also a believer in the power of community engagement. He was a generous philanthropist and a pillar of the community, actively involved in local and national organizations such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Park Foundation, The Greening of Detroit, and the Horizons-Upward Bound Program at Cranbrook. He also served on the Alumni Association Board of the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, where he chaired its Diversity Committee. His sister, Akosua, established the Sidney Barthwell Sr. Scholarship Fund at the college in honor of their father.
In keeping with Sidney’s unwavering commitment to community, Barthwell scholars will become members of a tight-knit and supportive network of other scholars, committee members, donors, and mentors. The goal is to meet annually for a luncheon so that donors and scholars can communicate informally and provide mentoring throughout not only the scholars’ Cranbrook years but beyond.
“Sidney’s friendship with me and his life demonstrated that we, as humans and citizens, have more in common with one another than differences,” says Jim. “Our goal for this scholarship is not only to support a promising student’s education but also to bring together people of all backgrounds so that we can create a model of civility, social justice, and community service, demonstrating that anything is possible when people come together.”
Family History
Sidney Barthwell Jr., who passed away in May 2020, was born into a prominent Detroit family in 1947, the youngest child of Sidney and Gladys Whitfield Barthwell and brother of Dr. Akosua Barthwell Evans. His father was the founder of the largest chain of drugstores and patent medicine stores ever owned by an African American. He also manufactured the popular Barthwell’s Ice Cream.
Sidney Barthwell Jr., a magistrate of the 36th District Court in Detroit for 10 years, was inspired by his father’s commitment to community to earn a law degree and practice as an attorney before ascending to magistrate in 2004. Sidney Jr. was a true Renaissance man: a poet, published author, lawyer, athlete, artist, and devoted husband, son, brother, and uncle.
His father, Sidney Barthwell Sr. was born in 1906 in rural Georgia. He grew up in a house with no plumbing or electricity. His father migrated to Detroit to seek better employment, and at the age of 16 Sidney Sr. followed his father on a solo train journey. Sidney Sr. graduated from Detroit’s most prestigious and academically rigorous public high school, Cass Technical High School, in 1922. In 1929 he graduated from City College of Detroit (now Wayne State University) with a degree in pharmacy.
Sidney Sr. built the largest chain of drugstores in the United States owned by an African American: 10 drugstores, two patent medicine stores, and three ice-cream stores. He also established Barthwell’s Ice Cream Company, famous throughout Detroit for its 20 flavors and high quality.
Sidney Sr. was also a committed philanthropist and leader in Detroit’s thriving Black middle class, serving on the Board of the Detroit Urban League and numerous pharmacy, educational, and professional organizations. He was also an elected delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention, where he served on the Judiciary Committee that helped establish the 36th District Court in Detroit. He was a staunch supporter of the NAACP and among the early supporters of the Annual Freedom Fund Dinner, which has become the largest annual civil rights fundraiser in the United States.
Sidney and Akosua’s mother, Gladys Marie Whitfield Barthwell, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1905. Gladys’s father operated a successful barber shop in downtown Greensboro. When he died, however, his partner unscrupulously took over the business, leaving her mother with no income. Gladys’s oldest sister devoted her life to ensuring that all of her nine siblings would graduate from college—and all but two did.
Gladys’s family included a number of distinguished educators and leaders. For example, one of her uncles, David Dallas Jones, LLD, was the president of Bennett College in Greensboro, one of the two historically Black colleges and universities focused on educating African American women. Another uncle, Robert E. Jones, was the first Black bishop in the United Methodist Church. Her brother-in-law, Oscar Anderson Fuller, PhD, was the first African American in the United States to receive a doctorate in music. Another brother-in-law, William Bartelle Wicker, PhD, built the high school that educated many African Americans in Sanford, North Carolina.
After graduating from Bennett College, Gladys obtained a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, where she often had few financial resources. It was while she was earning her master’s that she was introduced to Sidney Sr., and she was instrumental in helping him build his business. She also earned a second master’s degree from Wayne State University and was president of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority for two terms. For many years, she was a schoolteacher and a librarian.
Sidney Jr. and Akosua were raised in Detroit’s historic Boston-Edison neighborhood. In 1958, Akosua entered Kingswood School Cranbrook. She was its first African American student. She was immediately elected to the Student Council, and she graduated as Student Council president and in the top five of her class academically. She went on to obtain a PhD from Columbia University and a JD from Yale Law School, where she was the co-marshal of her class. Akosua became one of the earliest women managers at Coopers & Lybrand in Detroit; she practiced law and was a banker on Wall Street before returning to Detroit, where she founded The Barthwell Group and began restoring their childhood home on West Boston Boulevard. She has served on more than 16 nonprofit boards throughout the United States.
In 1959 Sidney Jr. enrolled at Cranbrook School for Boys in Bloomfield Hills, famously a school for the children of Detroit’s auto industry elite. His classmates included Mitt Romney and journalist Daniel Ellsberg. Sidney Jr. was one of only a handful of African American students at the school. Although he was a prefect and a star athlete, his time at Cranbrook was not always easy.
After graduating from Cranbrook in 1965, Sidney Jr. briefly attended Wayne State University. Drawn to the civil rights and the Black Power movements, he left school and moved to New York City, where he wrote poetry and started a nonprofit focusing on raising awareness of sickle cell anemia. In 1981, when Sidney Jr. was living back in his family home, his nephew, Walter K. Evans, was born. Sidney Jr. vowed that he would turn his life around and become a role model for his nephew.
Sidney Jr. eventually returned to Wayne State University, where he was named to the Dean’s List, earning his degree in political science and psychology in 1986; he enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1987. Walter went on to graduate from Stanford University, worked in private equity in Silicon Valley, and became the chief operating officer and a principal of The Barthwell Group, the Detroit-based strategic management consulting firm that he owns with his mother, Akosua.
At Harvard Law, Sidney Jr. began honing the leadership skills that he demonstrated throughout his career. He was the executive editor of the Harvard Blackletter Journal, the general editor of the Harvard-Civil Rights Law Review, and a member of the Harvard Black Law Students Association. He made many friends during law school, including Barack Obama, with whom he co-edited a journal.
Sidney Jr. would credit those experiential years before law school with shaping his value system and sparking his passion for social justice.
“Years later,” recalls Akosua, “he would still hang out with some of the guys [on the street] whom he knew in that period. I would ask him, ‘Sid, why do you hang out with these guys?’ He would say, ‘Because I want them to see that they can accomplish the same things I have.’ That says a lot about him—he was loyal, never a snob, and he cared so much about helping others succeed.”
Sidney Jr. graduated from Harvard Law School in 1990 and joined the white-shoe law firm Dickinson Wright in Detroit. After two years, he formed his own firm, focusing on criminal defense, family law, real estate, and commercial law.
In 2004 he was appointed magistrate of the 36th District of Detroit, where he served until his retirement in 2014. One of his colleagues commented that Sidney Jr. was an extremely professional and compassionate magistrate. He wanted to understand what had caused those who appeared before him to end up in court. And although he followed the letter of the law, he always sought to administer the law in a way that would be remunerative and not strictly punitive.
Family and his personal passions were integral to Sidney Jr. In 1994, he married the love of his life, Judith Thompson, whom he had known since childhood. Sid was attracted to Judy not simply because of her beauty but also because of her dedication to her profession as a teacher, her many talents (she is an accomplished singer and dancer), and the fact that she is an avid reader. They shared a love for travel and visited numerous countries. Sidney Jr. was a devoted runner who participated in 14 marathons and wrote the book Running: Traversing the Road of Life, a philosophical meditation on life.
Photo credits ©2020 Dr. Akosua Barthwell Evans ©2020 Judy Barthwell.
