The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap

Description

“Read this book. It explains so much about the moment…Beautiful, heartbreaking
work.” ―Ta-Nehisi Coates “A deep accounting of how America got to a point
where a median white family has 13 times more wealth than the median black
family.” ―The Atlantic “Extraordinary…Baradaran focuses on a part of the
American story that’s often ignored: the way African Americans were locked out
of the financial engines that create wealth in America.” ―Ezra Klein When the
Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, the black community owned less
than 1 percent of the total wealth in America. More than 150 years later, that
number has barely budged. The Color of Money seeks to explain the stubborn
persistence of this racial wealth gap by focusing on the generators of wealth
in the black community: black banks. With the civil rights movement in full
swing, President Nixon promoted “black capitalism,” a plan to support black
banks and minority-owned businesses. But the catch-22 of black banking is that
the very institutions needed to help communities escape the deep poverty
caused by discrimination and segregation inevitably became victims of that
same poverty. In this timely and eye-opening account, Baradaran challenges the
long-standing belief that black communities could ever really hope to
accumulate wealth in a segregated economy. “Black capitalism has not improved
the economic lives of black people, and Baradaran deftly explains the reasons
why.” ―Los Angeles Review of Books “A must read for anyone interested in
closing America’s racial wealth gap.” ―Black Perspectives Read more

Features:

Product Details:

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; Reprint edition (March 11, 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674237471
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 76
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
• Best Sellers Rank: #68,549 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #123 in Economic History (Books) #185 in Discrimination & Racism #206 in African American Demographic Studies (Books)
• #123 in Economic History (Books)
• #185 in Discrimination & Racism