40 Acres And A Mule: How Post Civil War Policy Kicked Off Racial Wealth Inequality

WBUR

By Robin Young & Samantha Raphelson

“The Chicago case was precipitated by a 17-year-old Black man swimming across this imaginary line that was functioning as a boundary in Lake Michigan between where Blacks could swim and where whites could swim,” he says. “And he was stoned to death by whites.”
When the Black community tried to avenge his death, white mobs destroyed large sections of the Black community, equaling more than $1 billion in today’s currency, Darity says.
Then in 1921, a white mob burned the Greenwood Section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was a wealthy Black community, after a Black man was accused of assaulting a white woman who was working as an elevator operator in a downtown building. More than 300 Black Americans were killed.
These massacres wiped out a generation of Black wealth, Darity says, but there were also policies during this period that restricted Black economic progress, known as the Black Codes.
“These laws essentially controlled Black family life, Black mobility, and they were designed in such a way that not only did they determine which occupations Blacks could be channeled into, but they also prevented Black workers from leaving jobs unless it was at the discretion of the white employer,” Darity says. “It was a form of re-enslavement.”
There were also policies that restricted where Black Americans could own property, known as restrictive covenants, he explains.

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