Your television provider. Welcome back to our centennial speaker series. Thank you for joining us for today its event featuring doctor shen that garrett scotch. If this is your first time joining us my name is donna and i have the honor of the school of business. 2020 marks a very special year for the Gabelli School. It is our hundred anniversary and we are celebrating 100 years of purpose driven bridge while business education. Since our inception we believed in the power of partnership to inform and lead change. I would very much like to thank the Gabelli Center for Global Security analysis and our wonderful partners, the museum of American Finance and the cfa society of new york who is cosponsoring todays conversation. One of the goals of the centennial series is to shine the light on the important history plays in shaping the future. In her latest book, banking on freedom, black freedom and u. S. Finance before the new deal, she explores a rich period of a black financial innovation and its Transformative Impact on u. S. Capitalism. Todays session will take place in three parts. First, my colleague and friend president and ceo of the museum of American Finance will introduce doctor shennette garrettscott. Then she will discuss her book, banking on freedom heard following this discussion david and i will facilitate audience questions. We ask the type your questions in the q a section near the bottom of the zoom screen. Im also very excited to share as a participant at todays webinar you will be entered into a raffle to win a free ecopy of the book banking on freedom. Winners will be notified be the end of the week. And finally before i turn it over to david to do a formal introduction, i do want to remind everyone that both the Gabelli School depend on your Financial Support for their mission part i would encourage you to take some time to think about a donation to both of our outstanding organizations. Now i would like to turn it over to david. Sue and thanks don its always great to back with you in the ford home and our friends today are speaker today received our her phd for the university of texas. Shes currently at the university of mississippi. Under research and writing she brings race gender and capitalism for the Research Behind this book is incredible. There are over 475 detailed footnotes. The book has received much praise including awards from the organization of american historians, the association of black women historians, the Southern Historical association for the best book in southern economic history. He is also on the shortlist for the haggling prize for the best book in Business History in 2020. Now, friend of the museum and former speaker in this lecture series are george roberson, it is quote unquote innovative and pathbreaking as well as beautifully written and deeply researched. Now shennette garrettscott can turn a phrase that searchlight with the dedication which i really like to my when malcolm dominique and my wings jemison. That given the social climate in the country today this book is timely in understanding the deepseated issues of inclusion and participation within the Free Enterprise capitalist system. Details about banking on freedom and the amazing story of Maggie Lee Walker who said about herself that she was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but rather a Laundry Basket on her head. It is shennette garrettscott, welcome. Guest thank you so much david for that wonderful introduction. In thank you for kristen for inviting me and everyone who made this possible. I went to share my screen and the slide. We will go ahead and get starte started. I also appreciate people taking the time out of their busy schedules to spend learning more about black womens contribution to u. S. Finance. So today, i will talk for about 35 minutes. And i will talk about the world of black finance in harlem before the 19209 stock market crash. Also one by use it to explore how black women use Financial Institutions like the st. Lukes finance corporation they lead and controlled to challenge the constraint of jim crow, sexism and economic exploitation. They use Companies Like the sl fc to carve out possibilities for themselves in the u. S. Economy and society. They understood their emotions and ideas about wealth and value and risk were shaped by gender and by race and place in the economic ladder. But they were not simply defined by these factors and processes. They took an active role in shaping the meaning of wealth and risk and opportunity. And certainly acknowledge the limitations they face because of erased gender and their class, i also really want to demonstrate how black women defined their values in ways that often counter to the kinds of messages they received about their worth as citizens and economic actors. Not just in black communities but in the larger u. S. Economy. We should have a good amount of time left for questions and answers. I think the best way to really understand the st. Lukes finance corporation is due to women who are vitally important to the venture. Thats Charity Jones and Lulu Robinson jones. In the next slide youll see two images. They are not charity lulu, i only have about three pictures total of those two women. But the anonymous women in those images capture their spirits. Ill start by imagining their early lives in new york to understand the kinds of challenges that black women fac face. And then i will briefly describe the independent order on how the Harlem Branch of the order formed the corporation. And then i will talk about the successes and challenges that they face. Especially finance Corporation Board which was comprised almost totally of women. So lets get started. Charity. Charity hesitated a moment before she stepped onto the dusty dirt streets. What am i doing she thought to herself . Suspended and the streetcar door between her old life that lay behind her and this awful new place. The smell, the noise, the people, all of the people, so many moving, pressing, buzzing now like flies rising from the piles of horse manure in the streets. This was 1885. Ed charity pause for a while the mostly empty seat of the streetcar can egg. She glanced back. What would she return to . Eight dead babies and two handfuls of years . All of them taken from her. One who never took to her breast, and another who managed to toddle a few steps. Literally there is no there back in virginia. So charity drew in her breath and planted her feet on the unforgiving ground. She dared not look back at the tiny handprints, the babies breath misting and curling off the streetcar windows. Eight dead babies calling her back home. Lulu, lulu hesitated. A moment before she stepped onto the wooden floor or in slick by of dancers, black men with even blacker burke cork basis. We stage lights homes the people murmured, pressed tightly together in the hardwood and theater seats. It was like a sudden rush of wind wishing and jostling leaves. Now this was harlem 1916. And lulu pause for a moment suspended between the noisy backstage goings on in the expectant audience just be on the lip of the thick velvet curtain. She eyed at center stage a pocket she could pour her voice into. So lulu drew in her breath and planted her feet on the expectant floor. And as she stepped into the spotlight, darkness while side of the stage where she had stood only a moment ago. She dared not look back old and onto silence. So Charity Jones and Lulu Robinson jones was her daughterinlaw had very different experiences as Migrant Women who moved to you new york city in the late 19th an early 20th century. But they did share some important things in common they shared of course charities only surviving child, a son. But like hundreds of thousands of other black women they also left the south to pursue better lives in the north. The chance to earn more money, to escape the humiliating social etiquette and the Sexual Violence of jim crow, defined excitement in the big cities of the north. So these two women also shared a devotion to the independent sort order of saint luke. This was a secret society that was step founded in the 1850s by a free black woman. In 1899 the independent order of st. Lukes under the leadership under the ambitious maggie lena walker. With headquarters in richmond, saint luke would become one of the most successful lack controlled in one of the very few largely black women controlled Financial Institutions in the country. At its peak in the mid 1920s the order ran a bank and an Insurance Company operated a newspaper. It boasted 100,000 members in more than 20 states. It employed nearly 200 people the overwhelming majority of them women. And it possessed assets that were equivalent to about 31 million in modernday dollars. In one important venture that brought the independent order of st. Lukes both renowned scandal involved Charity Jones and Lulu Robinson jones. That was the saint luke finance corporation. Headquartered in harlem and organized in the late 19th by the North District of the independent order of st. Lukes. The st. Lukes finance corporation reflects the opportunity that open for women and u. S. Finance by the 1920s. It was a complex tapestry made up of thousands, thousands of black controlled Financial Institutions. These include formal banks and Insurance Companies as well as thrift savings clubs industrial loan associations Credit Unions and even finance corporations. In this complex tapestry controlled millions of africanamerican dollars in expanded their dreams. The urban and northern part black population the boundaries of those dreams. So the strategy of the fight st. Lukes finance reflected some of these anxieties about black womens bodies in these new urban spaces. There were these conflicting tension that saw black women as a victim but also the sources of social order as both in need of financial protection but also new economic opportunities. Working womens demand stretch these Financial Institutions like the independent order of st. Lukes. They decided better Career Options and housing choices. They rejected these efforts to release their behavior on the way they spend their leisure time. These new negro women were attracted to the promises of investment as a vehicle specific inclusion, forte rights in a way to destroy and dismantle jim crow. They also grew really tired of these pictures that imply that men were the proper producers and consumers of these products. These markers of citizenship. The Financial Institution women met and control experiments with innovative ways to raise capita capital. They also struggled with experience in the problem of racial and sexual discriminatio discrimination. So my book of banking on freedom deals with a number of these were going to focus on the rise and fall of the st. Lukes finance corporation. So it is 1916 and the struggling new York District of st. Lukes which is headquartered in harlem elected a new president. His name is dennis grice. The harlan st. Lukes had 3 dollars and 45 cents in its coffers but was more than 400 in debt. Now he may have been the formal hand at the wheel but his Ambitious Group of women controlled. Twentyone members mostly Women Incorporated the st. Lukes finance corporation receptor sites on investments in real estate. So women made up six of the Seven Members of the finance corporations board. And Lulu Robinson jones was widowed by 1909 shared the advisory committee. So when harlan st. Lukes turned to Charity Jones to help recruit new members. And Charity Jones solidified her status. She is known as the mother of st. Lukes in new york. And so through her efforts, membership in the new York District sword in the midst of the great migration. I was not the joneses women charm alone that refueled a resurgent in the harlem st. Lukes numbers. They are square focus, laser focused on addressing the needs of black women. Let the spark that revived the order. So the new negro woman tested and expanded the boundaries of these organizations. They were this model of modern black womanhood. We have scholars at talk about the new negro women and they really stress their cultural and political importance. But economic concerns really placed high among their priorities. These women and their families desperately needed jobs and housing. And she understood this dilemma intimately i suspect. In the mid to late 19 teens, black women likely confronted limited Employment Opportunities as well as squalor housing conditions, over policing and overcrowding in segregated sections of the city. So Roberson Jones and the other women of the Advisory Board were able to borrow 3000 in the st. Lukes bank in richmond. The bank is very cautious, the finance committee would like to be unwilling to invest more in the real estate scheme or they were just unable to do so. Because investment in new york real estate, even then required substantial capital. On this capital demands we have to remember were compounded by the racial tariffs that made the cost of credit and consideration higher for blacks than it was for whites. So Roberson Jones envisioned this new and returning members as potential investors. And opera singer of summer noun, she also understood the business of leisure in harlem. She arranged these Fundraising Affairs that combine entertainment and enterprise. For example she organize this fundraising perception at the manhattan casino and had a very famous for straw for music. So in just a few months the harlem st. Lukes raised enough money to secure a mortgage on the building. I purchased a former convent on west 130th street in 19201 just a few years later bought a second property, a 24 room Apartment Building on west 129th street. It is called the casanova is what they called it. In 19202 remodel its first acquisition that former convent on 130th and it transformed it into the st. Lukes hall. It became the new york st. Lukes district headquarter headquarters. Spent the equivalent to more than a Million Dollars in modern dollars. Two remodel the st. Lukes hall on 130th. This hall accommodated everything in the black community from pageant to Church Groups to International Delegations to union meetings. And in 19204 the order further added to its holdings by purchasing a third property. A combination Apartment Building, restaurant and retail store on west 139th street. It was not used far from strivers wrote. But st. Lukes three properties stood as these brick, granite, and steel monuments to black economic progress. Located in the heart of harlems black community this growing black community, st. Lukes hall became an important center for business, for Community Activities and entertainment. And for vice parade the pastor First Immanuel Church called out st. Lukes hall as the place were bootlegging and prostitution. And cabarets belie its saintly name. And Frederick Asbury collins the pastor of salient Methodist Episcopal Church and father of renaissance polish called st. Lukes home. Nothing less hellhole of god. It was very likely that tenant in the restaurants, stores, the Office Spaces in st. Lukes hall and apartments held parties, to help make and meet and they ran numbers game which was illegal but highly profitable lottery gambling game. It was also very popular. Excess in the business of leisure and living it seemed required a foot in both the formal and the extralegal economies in harlem. So lets recount. In 1916 the harlem st. Lukes are broke. In 1918, they form the st. Lukes finance corporation. Within a few years that Corporation Makes them ambitious and lucrative real estate investments. So that by 19209, and a little more than a decade, the new york st. Lukes went from being nearly 400 in debt to having more than 5 million. That is a very conservative modernday dollars. Having 5 million in property. So as the country slid towards economic decline by the end of the decade for failure to sell all of the Corporation Stock left it undercapitalized. Despite the fact it was generating or than 10,000 dollars in annual profits. That equals too about 150,000 in modernday dollars that they raise from the spaces in the hall and the apartments in the building. The order used those revenues to provide jobs for admittedly a topheavy workforce of nearly two dozen employees. But also to fund its public commitment by providing charitable assistance to nearly 500 harlem families. To let me stress you for just a moment, these concerns safe, affordable, quality housing. A restaurant, retail spaces that offer fair prices and a variety of groups and services. Good paying stable jobs, respectable and not so respectable amusement and leisure activities. These were really important priorities for black women in particular in black communities in general. These were the central social economic and i would add political concerns that animated those women who were leading the st. Lukes enhanced corporation. So the district ended up raising the equivalent of about one point to Million Dollars and modernday dollars from a bond offering. Now the incredible amount of money they were able to raise really highlights the democratization of investing among black communities. So let me say that another way. It really demonstrates the way that investing was popular and accessible for most africanamericans. It also revealed a commitment to the working and middleclass to selfhelp. And so in banking on freedom of black peoples participation and investment and get rich schemes that really made the 1920s roar. One point to Million Dollars, that dollar loans and the Swanky Affairs cannot explain, at least on their own the dramatic rise in the harlem st. Lukes fortun fortune. Some legal creative financing. But in the interest of time im not going to go into detail here. I did delve into those creative financing schemes that the ladies of finance corporation the impressive sums in such a short amount of time. The countrys economic downturn coupled with past investigation like Marcus Garvey and the universal finances really left the creative financial schemes of all kinds of blacks of fraternal and other organizations which include of course the independent order of st. Lukes vulnerable to state scrutiny. That is exactly what happened. In 19208 the new york state attorneys general began an investigation into the order. And after just two hearings the court determine the order was insolvent to the point of receiver. In order to sell its real estate holdings. So just as i imagine at the beginning of the talk out charity g jones extra Charity Jones and Lulu Robinson the only picture i have of her might have felt moving to and through new york city. I can only guess how they mustve felt when their beloved order loss or crown jewel. Jones mustve felt bereft at the losses but she lost her home. She lived in one of the modeled apartments in the st. Lukes hall, the First Property that they purchased. And she died in 19209 and still resided at 127 west 130th street. But there was no longer the glorious st. Lukes hall. In that fact had to be bittersweet. And Lulu Robinson jones told a census taker 1930 that she was not working, she was unemployed. Its not clear how active she stayed in st. Lukes. It is very likely that she never again held such a powerful position in a multimillion dollar concern. So what . So i hope as i close by illuminating this story about the rise and fall of st. Lukes bank in banking on freedom at which this story about the st. Lukes corporation is in part i try to connect the major developments in u. S. History. And talk about reconstruction, the gilded age, the great migration world war i, the new negro era. Im trying to recover the important and the active role that black women played in the development of modern American Finance capitalism. While i acknowledge the contributions made to modern capitalism i cannot ignore the exploited aspects of capitalism or the destructive ways that the political economy severely limited black womens opportunities. So look at the st. Lukes corporation is a kind of case study is a form of community and Institution Building but also of protests and resistance. As we stand economic demands like the labor strikes or the boycotts. So in powerful ways black womens and creditors and debtors as consumers as owners of stock and in short policyholders really try to transform racial capitalism through a woman center articulation of black economic selfdetermination. But i have to mention my got the title. I hope that you are familiar with the number game that was so popular black communities from the late 19th century to the late 1970s. In a pretty basic version of playing the numbers involve placing a bet with a three number combination. If your hit, if your number hit theres a tiny investment of pocket change into a couple hundred dollars. So an industry arises out of this really popular number game. People sell lucky charms, give lucky objects and charms pretty have spiritual that can help you predict your lucky numbers. You also have these things called dream books. This is kind of how a dream book works. You have a dream about a dog. So you can look in the dream book and you can find a three number combination attached to that dog. It could be a yellow dog maybe you can look up yellow. He finds three numbers associated with yellow. And you playing these numbers to win. So one dream book from the 20s and the 30s offered this explanation under people who dream about colored people. And the dream book said quote this is an excellent dream for all. It promises riches and extraordinary good health to those in business, great success. Two prisoners a speedy release, to farmers good crops. To the brokenhearted, courage,. So i borrowed the title from this dream Book Description about colored people. Because i imagined that the women of the corporation were dreaming of the African American community. And that they felt it was really an excellent dream for all. So thank you all so much for your attention and for the time. Thank you for inviting me. See what it is our pleasure, thank you so much, that was great. I cannot let you escape without talking about the woman that adorns the cover of your book. Maggie lee walker. Could you tell the audience, its amazing her circumstances. She was born and raised, what she accomplished. Secondly is there a place you can learn more about or visit . On a more sober note what would she say about whats going on in this country . I think shes such a focal point of the book itself fascinating. Guest yes i was telling david as historian which i have the objectivity with our subjects. But it is hard not to be so impressed. She was born right at the end of the civil war and richmond, virginia. And she said herself as she grew up not with a silver spoon in her mouth but with a wash basket up upon her head. She grew up poor. But her circumstances and her life really i think shaped her vision. Her Economic Vision for black women in particular. And she of course was intimately involved with the order of st. Lukes. She became president of the young woman in 1899. And she really transformed that organization. It was on its last leg in 1899 when she took over. And she communicated this vision or she could open up a store and a factory for there were never able to open the factory. And a bank. She succeeded in doing that and openly st. Lukes Penny Savings Bank in 1903 which was the first bank to be led by a black woman. And also be in finance with an africanamerican women. She was also very active politically, socially all around the country. And if you want to know more about her, other than my book, there is actually a really great article that just came out a few weeks ago in the wall street journal with that focuses on rising women in the present day in banking. And it kind of harkens back to the story of walker trying to understand this phenomenon of women in banking. And if you are ever in richmond, at her house she has a beautiful manchin that she owns in richmond. In the National Park service owns her house. You can also go online and you can do a virtual tour. There are many images of objects in the house and also of her. Their various businesses and black life in richmond. And finally think Magdalena Walker would have a lot to say about the events going on today. In fact i see that in the midst of covid she would have a lot to say about kind of revising the kind of work she did with the st. Lukes bank as well as the independent order of st. Lukes and Insurance Company. So she always asks about a black womans way of banking. I think we could learn about banking that is really attuned to the practical needs of the communities. That it centers then. I think with the pandemic she would argue about using sound and conservative lending criteria. But wasting semi structural, institutional inequalities that arent inherent in things like credit scores. So to look at multiple other kinds of sources to vet peoples credit worthiness. Small investment especially in black business we think of as micro finance today. Those are the kinds of things i think if she were here today she would look around. I think she would be ready to really put her shoulder into kind of a transforming shaping the racial wealth gap. When she tried to doing stuff and shes going to try to be doing in 2020. Host thanks so much such Great Stories and have real meeting today. It is really incredible. So we have a professor george rob question. He is asking to know whether any st. Lukes councils and northern cities try to organize similar financial experiments . Guest yes, i do. I know that in philadelphia, and some of the largest were harlem, philadelphia and d. C. Washington d. C. I know in washington d. C. They actually tried to do something similar. They tried to build a st. Lukes hall. Bridget was of the model of creating finance corporation that could raise the funds to invest in his real estate ventures. Try to do that in d. C. Its an interesting story. Definitely an philadelphia and d. C. Also just in rural areas as well. Particularly in the south. I am not as familiar with the north. Even on a small scale would women raise thousands of dollars to build small brick or wood buildings that they call st. Lukes headquarters. I think theres an richburg virginia and some other small towns. Especially throughout virginia were asked jenn africanamerican women were able to do it on a smaller scale. Subjects are not question comes from our professor. He wants to know why these banks and institutions disappear . And how many if any are still around . Sue back before the 1930s there were over 100 africanamerican banks that have been formed between 1888 when the very first one was chartered in richmond which was kind of known as the cradle of black capitalism. But even on the eve of the Great Depression, part of the reason they disappeared to do with factors and many of them can be attributed to structural racism. So you had banks often limited, they were limited and where they could operate. They focus largely on African Americans who make less money. And they had difficulty accessing credit. And the banking knowledge further could get. Even those whose were crippling under which they try to make a banking venture go, African Americans did innovate in ways to overcome those barriers. There is the National Negro Bankers Association that was first formed in 1907. It survived again in the 1920s. They would send people who had some Banking Experience out, throughout the country to try to share what knowledge they had with these banks. Often these banks were targeted by a new banking regulation that would come up. So on one hand they seem very neutral. They were used often as a causal by the state to really write the symbols of black progress off the map. That of course like other banks, other Financial Institutions that just could not weather. Most of us cannot weather the storm of the Great Depression. So coming hobbling through and out of the Great Depression there were about a dozen banks. But again there was a revival especially around world war i. The number of black banks. The number black bank changes all the time. There is a movement afoot which is bank black. It encourages all people to invest, to deposit 100 in a black bank in order to build them up. There is that bank lack for theres also a website, i can probably look it up. I think its bank black usa. Org. With that list of black banks you concert mention search by the by your area code are part of the country you are in. It includes both online and brick and mortar banks. We do have a handful of banks that are more than 100 years old that are still in existence today. Really excellent, wonderful. I have a question from caitlyn rosa kennedy. She indicates that she is a huge fan of your writing and lecturing skills. The question is about the ideas of racial uplift. They are into the running of st. Lukes. For example did it ever bar certain groups for be unfit representatives of the race like poor black women. Didnt bar them participating in finance capitalism . I appreciate her to shes a former student. Yes, definitely respectability politics played a role in black finance and in black capitalism. Not necessarily in restricting people who might have been considered on respectable. In these kind of financial uplift activities. In fact she herself was a product of rape. And she of course was surrounded by communities of women the been to racial and Sexual Violence. So being in on wed mother for example is not necessarily something that would cast you out of the realm of respectability. And also she is really committed to seeing financial independenc independence, Economic Literacy as a path forward. Because these women had to take care of family. Also the important rolls in the community in terms of their work and churches and their activism. So she saw she tries to make lending a respectable activity for these women as a way to lift themselves out of their pocket. But i do have to say that as the way she ran the bank and the Insurance Company there was a point where she was a little oldfashioned. Instead of the younger women who were able to take advantage, this Younger Generation were able to take advantage of the opportunity women like that first generation out of slavery in her circle of women were able to provide a Younger Generation of women who change under the restrictions. They did not want to have prayer and devotion every morning before work. They wanted to wear more colorful close for they wanted to go to movies listen to jazz music. There is a politics of respectability which i think generationally about what the older generation of africanamerican women were trying to provide the opportunities for the Younger Generation. At the Younger Generation of women who were taking advantage of those opportunities heard but want to do things their own way. Sue and i just want to ask the next question. I want to amplify for a few statements ago. He writes extensively on the state Bank Examiners and how horrible they were to these banks. I think it was the North Carolina case where they are bragging about how they can go about and shut these banks down. So it is actually awful. Our next question, laura thanks you as well on whats in no if you know the extent that white and black women and white and black women are invested in st. Lukes . Guest its hard to tell. Definitely Magdalena Walker was really skilled in building interracial coalitions. Something from the White Community of richmond to accomplish her vision and her goals. At times of investment there probably were, just like in the Freedman Bank. There probably were some whites who did have a small account at the bank. Or perhaps may have had stock in the bank in order to show that they were progressives. And supportive of these efforts for black progress. But, black banks, not just st st. Lukes but many financial organizations in particular and short companies and black banks really tried to make a point that these were largely black controlled efforts of uplifting the community. They really made appeals to race pride parade some of them talked about and really stressed they were able to accomplish the things they were able to accomplish without white assistance. For use of their services. Its a complex question prints on the one hand you have whites who as a show of support did participate minimally actual investment in these organizations. But, African Americans at the same time or really stressing did not need or require white participation to really showcase to also what to say to that economic growth, business, is an area where you could get by in from a broad swath of radical to moderate. There are people who could be staunchly segregated, who could support the idea of a separate black economy. And then he could have more liberal or moderate people who also support a black separate economy. So again the idea about race and white participation and their conception of black business in a black separate economy on the one hand can be they can have progressive ideas. They can also progressive ideas as well. The question from lisha duct in. What can we learn from all those women in harlem that could help us today . Guest how to build wealth today . I would probably Say Something thats not really popular. I think reparation is an issue for serious consideration. I am hoping hr 40 will finally be debated and dealt with in congress. That bill is to create a position to study reparation. Not just for slavery but also for Racial Discrimination and inequity beyond slavery. I think that is one important step forward in terms of closing the wealth gap. Im Building Wealth today. And again i think that really embracing some parts of her vision and activities of the saint luke women tried to really look at community concerns, Community Needs and to meet those needs which of course would take raise a large sums of money. But by censuring the needs of the community that articulated by the community. This is not for example gentrification. But actually listening to the voices of people in communities and give them spaces in the industries. What you want . What you need . And then crafting programs and tools to help them meet those needs. And at the same time, also chipping away, not chipping away but working to dismantle kind of barriers to have them in their place. We are missing for example about lending. Some people may say oh well, these communities there is a value in those communities. They are not the same, they are declining or falling. But that is not an accident. So those Financial Institutions in particular, those organizations including realtors and stuff, those groups hope to create that situation need to admit their complicity in creating these kinds of pockets in these places where these kind of really stark inequalities exist. And then after we can have an honest conversation about the complicity in that, then talk about how can we now dismantle some of the practices and the narratives that we have had about particular places. And these ideas again about wealth and risk and opportunity and kind of redirect the conversation. Host earlier you just mention the Freedman Bank and attempt after the civil war. Im wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. When you have a chapter about a familys 46 year to try to get compensation. I dont think many people probably know about the Freedman Bank. I wonder if you could just get us a little on that . Guest believe it or not the school is doing a test that is in the back hurt i was sure to talk up a little bit louder. The famous bank was created after the civil war, immediately after the civil war in 1865. And it lasted for nearly a decade to74. It was a bank that was formed to for the formerly enslaved. That was in the charter. And it was one of the banks that was found by the federal government. Had first bank of the United States, the second bank of United States and the Freedman Bank. They used a board of all White Trustees because they did not trust African Americans also know how to direct their financial futures. Theres kind of a change in the bank that allowed it to be as immense resources of a billion dollars circulated in this bank in terms of modernday dollars in the decade, the mere decade that it operated. And through that corruption of the White Trustees and other people connected to the bank like the cook brothers financiers in new york, that led to the demise of the bank. African americans lost millions of dollars of their deposits. Said that is the common story. I just want to say in my book i really try to look at how African Americans use the bank, especially black women. How they kind of subverted some of the plans and visions that limited Economic Visions of these White Trustees to bend the bank to meet their needs. I also want to point out that two points i really make about the bank is one that black women, never abandoned their own economic networks. That they had forged through slavery and after. They put the freemans bank within that network. And the second thing that even of the barrier of the bank was devastating, not just devastating to black wealth but also just devastating for people to lose as a symbol of progress and citizenship and opportunity and freedom for them to lose that bank, it convinced them they needed to control their own Financial Institution. And so the kind of bittersweet or upside if there is one of the closing of the bank is that it really jumpstarted black Banking Movement with the First Charter Bank in 1888. Host so we have one final question we have time for and is by Nancy Wheeler i love the question. She thanks you and thank you for elevating the early black women in finance. And we all want to know, other than handing out copies of your book on the corner, how else can we educate more people on these amazing women . Speech of the National Park service has a wonderful video that is shown in the museum that you can access on youtube so you can learn more about it. I also think the pbs documentary called boss the black experience in business, is a start. It is two hours long. I am in that documentary. I can tell you i talked for three hours. There is so much on the cutting floor that he hoped the producers family, it could be a series. But to really get a quick primer into a history of african or american business, that documentary the black expensive business is available you can stream it from pbs. Its important as well. Of course theres also so many other books. I will be sure to send a link paradigm a part of and i have articles on that you can find it will be sure to send that link. Donna thank you so much. Host on behalf of all of this in front of us at the museum, thank you so a much. We had a terrific one hour up with you. Its so informative. We know we will hear a lot more from you in your career. So thank you. Shennette thank you. Youre watching book tv, on cspan2, every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2, created by americas Cable Television company is a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Watching duck with author and chair of africanamerican studies at princeton university, any jr, live on sunday december 6th at noon eastern. His most recent book, includes a begin again. James baldwin american and insurgent lessons from home. Exodus, democracy and black. In the uncommon faith. Joining of the life to our conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. Watch in depth with any jr, sunday december 6 and noon eastern. On book tv on cspan2. Every year book tv asked member of congress about the books they are reading. Host joining us once again as governments gerald connolly, democrat from virginia. Give us an update on your reading list congressman. Peter as you know, i read at least a book a week. And the last broadcast, the book reads, there are two that i will start with. One is this monumental biography by david
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