The next time you hear someone complaining about ‘the deck being stacked against them,’ you might want to tell them that between 1865 and 1874, about 100,000 black individuals and institutions amassed $57 million in the Freedman’s Bank, an institution created by then President Abraham Lincoln to help newly freed slaves create wealth and learn about capitalism.
[Watch] Black History Month: How Freed Slaves Created and Lost $57 Million
Freed Black slaves (Photo: National Archives Catalog)