Top 10 Brutal Realities Of The American Reconstruction
The American Civil War is one of the most studied, dramatized, and reenacted events in world history. Much less covered is the period generally agreed by historians to have spanned from 1865 to 1877 known as the Reconstruction.The Civil War could easily be portrayed as a glorious campaign where the forces of good triumphed and in the process freed millions and preserved the union. It’s all very reassuring if not inspiring. Meanwhile the American Reconstruction is largely a matter of blunders. Blunders that cost countless Americans their lives and generations their livelihoods. Hard to feel inspired by that.
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New data traces rise, fall of the Freedman’s Bank
February 25, 2021
Early effort to help newly freed slaves was sabotaged by racial violence
A University of Georgia finance professor used the records of a Reconstruction-era bank to add fresh insights to the financial lives of newly emancipated African Americans, and how efforts to support them collapsed.
“What we found is this significant policy lesson about the importance of trust in encouraging financial participation,” said Malcolm Wardlaw, an assistant professor of finance at the Terry College of Business. “When you’re dealing with the trust and well-being of marginalized communities, you’re dealing with something fragile and whatever you do, you don’t want to harm it.”
Banking has a racist history in the US
Banking in the United States has a long history of racial injustice. In 1874, thousands of Black people saw their savings wiped out when Freedman s Bank collapsed. The government-chartered bank, started for newly freed Black Americans, promised to return some of the lost funds to customers, but most received nothing or pennies on the dollar.
Shawn Rochester, author of The Black Tax, told Insider that the Freedman Bank collapse bred distrust of banks among Black Americans.
Freedman s was marketed as a Black bank but actually run by white managers, Rochester explained. Those managers used Black customers money in risky ways, and lost a total of $3 million from 61,000 Black depositors, most of whom had been members of the Union Army.
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