Celebrating Black Economic History--February 2011

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Excerpts from "Surviving And Thriving 365 Facts in Black Economic History" by Julianne Malveaux, http://www.lastwordprod.com (Used by permission.)

• Whether free or enslaved, African American people were involved in the economic development of our nation.

• By 1910, African American people had more than 15 million acres of rural land, but Black farms were smaller and less well capitalized than White farms -- a prescription for land loss during the 20th century.

(This was almost 50 years after the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863 that freed 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million enslaved people.)

• By 1999, Black rural land ownership had dropped to 7.7 million acres, or just 1 percent of all privately owned rural land in the United States.

(For a summary of how this statistic relates to the USDA Settlement with Black Farmers, see Wall Street Journal article, "Black Farmers, USDA Agree to $1.25 Billion Settlement" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704269004575073820593191804.html#articleTabs%3Darticle)

• Congress chartered the Freedman's Saving and Trust Company in 1865. By 1874, deposits totaled more than 3 million, but the bank had been so poorly run that when the abolitionist Frederick Douglas became its president in 1874, he declared it bankrupted. Though Congress chartered this bank, it refused to reimburse depositors.

Discussion:  Do you think there is any correlation between how blacks were historically treated by financial institutions, (e.g., the Freedman's Savings and Trust's bank failure, exploitation of black consumers who were charged high interest rates and given bad loans by some financial institutions, etc.) and the statistic stating that Blacks have the highest "unbanked"* rate of any U.S. ethnic group.  (See the graph below)


*Unbanked is defined as households that answered "no" to the question, "Do you or does anyone in your household currently have a checking or savings account?"

UNBANKED HOUSEHOLDS BY RACE AND ETHNICITY
http://www.economicinclusion.gov/key_findings.html

About The Author:

Dr. Julianne Malveaux is an economist, author and President of Bennett College for Women.  Malveaux's popular writing has appreared in USA Today, Black Issues in Higher Education, Ms. Magazine, Essence Magazine, and The Progressive.  A native San Francisian, she is the Founder and Thought Leader of Last Word Productions, Inc. a multimedia production company headquartered in Washington, D.C.