He told a newspaper interviewer in 1992 that, although he "started in the ghetto, black, poor, on welfare ... in America, it's still possible for him to succeed, without a government subsidy." He also was a leader in the field of education, helping to develop the Leadership Development Program for Minority Managers at Johns Hopkins University in the 1990s. The program provides an academic business environment for mid-level black professionals, bringing together the university's resources and Baltimore's business community. The Raymond V. Haysbert Research Center at Coppin State University, an applied research facility, was instituted and named in his honor in 2004. When Haysbert died of heart failure in Baltimore on May 24, 2010, he was called an "elder statesman of Maryland's African-American business community" by the "Baltimore Sun" and lauded as a "courageous American hero" by the president of the Baltimore City Council. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Haysbert, "used his success and status in the community to help dozens if not hundreds of other minority-owned businesses start and thrive in Baltimore". He was survived by his wife, Carol, and four children.