Follow the Money: How Taxation & Banking has Affected the Racial Wealth Gap

It is difficult to understand the history of economic inequality in the United States without exploring how the nation's taxation and banking systems have influenced wealth-building along racial lines. From unequal taxation policies and predatory tax laws to financial corruption, African Americans have historically been on the receiving end of unjust practices supported by federal, state, and local authorities. UVA's historians Justene Hill Edwards (Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank) and Andrew Kahrl (The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America), in conversation with Claudrena Harold, will discuss their recently published books and consider the intertwined histories of taxation, banking, and the racial wealth gap in America.