“The origins of the racial wealth gap start with the failure to provide the formerly enslaved with the land grants of 40 acres,” says William A. Darity Jr., a professor of public policy and African-American studies at Duke University. Any financial progress that black people made was regarded as an affront to white supremacy. After a decade of black gains under Reconstruction, a much longer period of racial violence would wipe nearly all of it away.
Department of African & African American Studies
