Both the racial wealth gap and path to zero wealth were formed over centuries of Black neglect and white wealth infusions. Throughout this nation’s history, Black Americans have been intentionally deprived of opportunities and used as a wealth-building resource to the advantage of whites.
To cite but a few of these instances—beginning with slavery—an estimated $20.3 trillion in wages were stolen from slaves.4 To give context to the magnitude of that plunder, the entire U.S. GDP was $21.4 trillion in 2019. The total value of slaves in 1860 was about $4 billion total.4 Slaves were worth more than the combined value of all the banks, railroads, and factories in the U.S. at the time.4 In today’s dollars, that would come out to as much as $42 trillion, accounting for inflation and compounding interest.4
To continue, the Homestead Act of 1862—which provided millions of acres of land for white ownership—furnished recent immigrants arriving from Europe with an economic base; additionally, subsequent land grant initiatives like the Timber Culture Act of 1873, the Kincaid Amendment of 1904, the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, and the Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916 all excluded Black Americans. Furthering this legacy of codified exclusion, the Social Security Act of 1935—which provided a safety net for workers by assuring them income in retirement—did not extend that benefit to two professions: agricultural and domestic workers. 65% of workers in these two industries were descendants of chattel slavery in the U.S.5a
Many more examples could be added to the list of events that produced the present wealth gap between white and Black America (white mob violence, redlining, etc.), but we cannot fail to note the significance of these recurring and discriminatory infusions of federal resources exclusively into white families. The ADOS Advocacy Foundation’s Black Agenda lists policies that the federal government must adopt to assist in closing the lineage-based, racial wealth gap
