WEBVTT - An Asset Becomes a Liability 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.240 When I was growing up, East Texas might as well 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:09.000 have been another planet. I grew up in Phoenix. There 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.800 was me, my dad, my brother Dan, and the Catholic 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.120 schools where we were often the only black kids. In 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:21.200 my mind, Texas was big hats rodeos that showed Dallas, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:23.520 and the only thing that connected me to the state 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.600 was a chunk of land my family owned there. My 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.560 dad's land was in a tiny town called Gilmour, near 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.080 Mount Pleasant, where we have a lot of distant relatives. 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.960 We drove through there once, but I don't remember meeting 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.320 any relatives. I do recall sleeping in the car and 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:44.080 arguing with my brother. After Arizona, I moved to California 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.639 and then France, about as far as you get from Phoenix. 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:50.400 Sometimes my dad would call me and talk about the 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.480 Texas property. How would buy a better life for him 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.560 and my brother, who has a disability, How there might 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.280 be oil on the land or some kind of rare timber. 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.080 I was never sure how seriously I should take him, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.360 but sometimes I'd like to fantasize that this could be 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.440 my retirement. I also like to brag to my French 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.080 friends about being a Texan landowner. It sounded kind of cool. 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.320 Years went by. My dad talked less and less about 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:19.120 the land, but he never gave up on it, and 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.440 one email I got from him, he says, I'm certain 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.480 of one thing. If that property ever pays off in Texas, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.200 we are out of here to someplace other than Mexico. 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.600 I have no idea what he meant by Mexico, and 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.640 I never got a chance to ask. He got cancer, 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.759 and while sick, a cousin reached out to see whether 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:41.600 I could get him to sell some of the land. 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.480 I tell the cousin how busy I was with kids 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:50.160 and work and living abroad, sort of code for I 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:53.520 really can't be bothered with this right now. Dad died 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.800 in early twenty six and for the next four years 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:02.560 I completely forgot about Texas. But during the pandemic and 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.520 after George Floyd was killed, I got to thinking about family. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.440 While digging around my closet, I came across a bright 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:17.560 red folder called Dad's Stuff. I opened it and I 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:27.600 was floored by what I saw. The data shows that 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.359 the median white family has ten times more wealth than 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.280 the average black family. One of the drivers of that 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.360 wealth gap is redlining. When it comes to understanding financial 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.000 inequality in this country, Economists often point to the absence 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:50.480 of African American generational wealth see the black Page. It's 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.600 a trend propelled not just by economic forces, but by 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:58.680 white racism in local white political and economic power. It's 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.560 much easier to enter rate a lunch comment than it 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.600 is to guarantee an annual income, for instance, to get 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:11.360 rid of positive Welcome back to the paycheck. I'm Rebecca 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.440 Greenfield and I'm Jackie Simmons. In our last two seasons, 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.240 we looked at all the reasons for and efforts to 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.760 fix the gender pay gap. This time we're switching gears. 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:24.880 We were starting to think about our third season when 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.520 the pandemic hit. It quickly became clear there was another 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:33.600 economic inequality demanding our attention, the racial wealth gap. I 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.520 got to talking about it with my colleague Jackie. I'd 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.840 recently moved back to the States after two decades overseas. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.040 I came back to a country dealing with its racist 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.920 past in a way it never had Black Lives Matter 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:52.960 protest politics. All this on top of a pandemic that 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.960 got me thinking about how my own experience with race 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.760 was shaped by my family's past, and it took me 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.120 back to Texas in the land. I started asking questions, 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.800 which led to more questions, and as I went deeper, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.840 I wondered how unique our story was. How did black 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.600 people build wealth in America? How did they keep or 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.920 fail to keep it? That's what Jackie and I will 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:27.160 be exploring for the next eight weeks. The US is 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.560 the richest nation in the world and has been for 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:34.160 a long time. All told, American households have about one 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.720 sixteen trillion dollars in wealth, most of that owned by 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:43.880 white people. Black people make up around the population, but 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.520 have just three point eight percent of the wealth. The 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:51.120 US passed civil rights laws meant to remove barriers for 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:56.520 black Americans nearly sixty years ago. Some things have changed 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.599 a lot, but not the wealth gap and real terms. 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.560 Here's what that means. When you count up how much 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:08.800 the average American household is worth, including stuff like property, investments, savings, 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.280 and anything else worth a dime minus any liability is 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:16.359 like student debt or mortgage. White households have almost seven 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.320 times more than Black households. There are a lot of 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:25.040 reasons for that, mostly America's legacy of slavery and racism, 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.520 and that shows up in all kinds of ways that 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:32.680 contribute to economic inequality. Black people are in less pay 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:36.040 higher taxes, have more student debt than white people, and 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.400 so on. Over time, this has made it harder for 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.440 black people to accumulate wealth and pass it on to 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.520 their children. As much as Americans love the Racks to 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.760 Richest story, the reality is most people acquire wealth from 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:55.359 their parents or their parents parents. By one measure, Americans 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.800 wealth came from inheritance. It's hard to overstate how important 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:04.720 that is. William Daretty, who also goes by Sandy, is 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.200 a professor at Duke University, and it's one of the 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.800 nation's leading scholars on race and economics. If there are 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:14.920 certain families that have a greater capacity to provide gifts 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:19.440 to the next generation than others, they're also providing that 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.400 next generation with a greater range of opportunity and a 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:29.200 greater likelihood of having a more economically secure future. For 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.320 all the reasons we'll talk about this season, white people 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.919 have had and continue to have huge advantages when it 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:39.640 comes to building wealth. Among the five hundred richest people 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.039 in the world that Bloomberg tracks, there are one hundred 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:47.480 fifty five American billionaires, and just one of them, Robert Smith, 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.760 is black. Yes, having money means you can buy bigger 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.480 houses and nicer cars, but it's much more than that. 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.880 Here's Sandy Daretty again. Wealth can protect you from income 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.159 losses in emergencies where you might lose a job, where 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.640 you might be confronted with catastrophic illness. Wealth provides you 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.120 with a certain kind of personal insurance, and having that 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.360 safety net it creates different kinds of opportunities and power. 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:21.200 The possibility of moving your family into a high amenity neighborhood, 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.280 the opportunity of trying to ensure that your children receive 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:29.080 a high quality education. It gives you access to the 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:34.720 political process. It allows you to leave resources for subsequent generations. 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.320 The racial wealth gap tells us a lot about the 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.400 economy as a whole. Who has security and economic mobility, 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.960 and this is really important. Whose children gets set up 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:49.440 for success later on. So that land my family owned 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.040 in Texas, my dad hoped it would set us up 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.560 for success or at least provides some financial security. And 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.800 when he inherit the lend from his mother, she wanted 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.520 this aimed for him and her other children it didn't 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:16.080 quite work out that way. Anyone dealing with passing down 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.960 land knows how expensive and messy that process can be 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.440 and always has been. But historically, white families and black 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:28.160 families have faced different challenges. In My family's story typifies 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:32.400 some of them. The story begins with Will and Barbara Brotus. 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.560 Barbara was born in eighteen seventy six. She's my great 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.880 great aunt and was married to Will. They were farmers 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.840 and had nearly eighty acres in Gilmer, Texas, about two 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:52.199 hours east of Dallas. The thumb was between the school 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.240 in their home. That's sunny and like me, she has 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:01.240 relatives who were raised by the Brotus and they raised 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:09.480 peace cord beings okrah Amish, peace onion, wallomelon camel, of theories, 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.079 everything they could. People thought of the protest as strict, 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.160 god fearing people, but they were also kind. They took 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:21.959 an abandoned or orphaned children, including my grandmother Jewel. They 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.240 cared for at least half a dozen kids over the years. 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.680 For a time they lived off the crops they raised 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.160 on those seventy seven acres. Then Will died and Barbara 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.080 divided the land between children and family friends. She died 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.160 in nineteen sixty four. I searched high and low trying 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.440 to uncover exactly how Will and Barbara originally came into 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.000 the land. I went through public records, I made phone 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:51.920 calls to family members across multiple states. I called county officials. 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.720 What experts and historians do know is that black farmers 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:01.079 were often gifted land from a white landowner or possibly 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:06.280 even a former slave master. My family records only date 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.920 to the time when the Brotess split up their land. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.880 Let me let me check. Let me check one of 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:18.120 my documents here. Okay, that's my cousin Ples. He has 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.880 all of the records. Uh. Jules Simmons two point five 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.800 two acres, Mildred's Shop three point five acres, Florida, May 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:34.280 Phillips two point five acres, Katherine Young two five acres. 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.000 By the time the Brotus died, the children they raised 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.240 had moved on and out of Gilmour. They wanted their 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.080 children to go to college and were professional jobs, which 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.360 usually took them to bigger cities. And that's exactly what happened. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.400 But while our families commitment to the land declined, one 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.800 thing did not property taxes. They went up and up, 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.720 and the land that should have been an asset became 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.240 a liability. I looked at it. It seemed like a headache. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.680 My cousin Noel, who lives in Atlanta, sold the last 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.000 of his family's personal in two thousand nine. All I 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:12.400 heard about the land was distress. My mother didn't concern 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.760 herself with it for the most part. Other than giving 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.839 money to help pay all property taxes. There are other 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:22.000 reasons not to hold onto the land. LANDA Davis is 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.320 another cousin and lives in Dallas. At one point, she 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:28.480 considered using the Gilmer Land as a retreat center for 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.600 her youth mentoring group, so she went to Upshurre County 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.240 to deal with taxes. But when she got there, she says, 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.760 a white man overheard her talking about her plans, and 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:42.200 he said, I don't want to deter you or any 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.800 of that, but I don't think you, being black, this 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:50.880 will be a good place for you all. And we're like, okay, 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.160 he said, I have some good black friends, but there's 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.559 a lot of white people out around here. This not 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:03.880 really wanting X to be in this area. Llana sold 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:08.240 most of her parcel in we would never live in Gilmer, 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.520 or even developed that land in Gilmer. We need to 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.800 let that go back to my dad's land. Remember when 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.680 I was digging around my closet over a weekend during lockdown, Well, 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:21.960 I had to catch my breath when I found an 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.440 offer letter from my dad's land from a man I'd 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.800 never heard of. Turns out Dad agreed to sell his 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.280 piece of land a long time ago. I had no 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:36.079 idea he sold it or why. The man who bought 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:40.800 the land was named Shane Mayn, so I called him 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.679 up to find out more. Okay, so are you are 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.480 you from like that vicinity or are you from a 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.000 different part of Texas. I'm actually from gilmur originally. Shane's 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.520 white and has spent his entire life in Gilmour. He 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.520 works as a home inspector, he's a deacon in a church, 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.160 and he's been buying land in the area since he 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.080 was seventeen. He eske to meate he's got around sixty 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.719 or seventy acres now, including my dad's two point five. Yeah, 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.960 I remember when we bought that property. We've been kind 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.960 of like buying pete piece and here and there we 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:17.120 were going we were actually gonna be aild a house 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:21.640 on it, if we got enough accumulated in there. Uh, 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.480 but we never have. We've just got trees up there. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.200 At the moment. In the files I was searching through, 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.319 I saw Shane offered my dad about six thousand dollars 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.120 for the property. That figure felt really low to me. 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.920 And then I saw paperwork in that same file cabinet 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.439 showing the county had to praise the land at almost 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:45.760 six times that amount. I asked Shane about that. He 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.320 didn't agree the land is worth that much. I was 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.960 told that every acre in ups Your county is valued 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.240 at twelve thousand, five hundred dollars and no matter what 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:00.200 it is, and that's the base pride. It can go up, 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:04.240 but it won't go below twelve thousand five night and 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.640 every piece of land on that no matter why. Really, 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:15.800 I couldn't disagree more because like Yolanda's half an acre, 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.120 I'd be glad to send you a picture of it. 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:24.760 It is a swamp. I mean a swamp. I reached 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.240 out to the up Sture Appraisal Office for the record 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:33.920 an official. They're said, valuations vary and not every property 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:39.160 starts at twelve thousand five an acre. I've never been 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:43.000 to Gomer, I've never seen the land. The county said 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.120 it was valued at more than thirty thousand dollars, which 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.520 would help explain why the taxes were so high. But 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:52.680 when it came time to sell, it was only worth 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.520 six thousand dollars. That still didn't make sense to me. 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.600 But when you start to add up the history of 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.120 how we got the land, the multiple slivers that were 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.600 parceled out to family owners who were impossible to track down, 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.600 the inadequate record keeping, the nature of the land itself, 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.480 and high taxes, you start to get a sense of 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.280 how black families in the US have a hard time 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.640 passing on wealth. Before I hung up, I asked Shane 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:26.360 what he planned to do with the land. Everything my 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.800 son to give them something another flip. And when I 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:42.320 get older, Black Americans have been trying to shore up 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:45.600 their economic futures for over a hundred fifty years, We're 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:47.240 going to spend a lot of time looking at how 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.440 those efforts have been boarded time and time again. But 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.400 there are also places in the US that are seen 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.200 as havens for black people, places where ambitious young professionals 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.080 are finding community and upward mobility, and there's one in 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:15.120 city that tops that list, Atlanta. I've been a journalist 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.840 at Bloomberg for twenty four years. I started in Paris 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.720 as a retail reporter. These days, I manage our bureaus 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:26.760 across the America's, among other things. And just over a 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.440 year ago, one of our reporters, Jordan Holman, told me 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.720 she wanted to leave New York City. I pitched to 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.480 you that I should be going to Atlanta, um, which 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:38.640 I remember you were surprised about and said you did 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.640 not expect that from me. Oh did I say that? 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:43.840 Because you figured that I would want to stay in 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.640 New York and that I was super happy there, So 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.440 why did you want to go to Atlanta? I was 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:53.400 imagining Atlanta just being super fun, you know. When I 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.160 would bounce the idea off my friends, like what if 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.360 I moved to Atlanta? They were like, if I would 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.680 move to any other city, it would be Atlanta because 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.840 there's so much entertainment and culture here, lots of good food, 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.919 and then the element that there's so many black people 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.880 there who are thriving. I was like, Okay, I can 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:11.960 make that work too, I can be part of that. 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.439 So moved and now you're in Atlanta, I am, and 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.240 it's been really eye opening. I think the idea of 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.720 Atlanta as this black mecca have been so deeply ingrained 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.760 in me growing up. I had cousins who graduated from 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.560 more House and Spellman, and when we visit it, we 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.439 went to the King Center and all of that. So 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.560 I was really surprised when I read the stats. There 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.919 are a lot of successful black people in Atlanta, but 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:42.280 the income inequality is also off the charts. The median 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.520 household income for a black family in Atlanta is about 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.520 twenty eight thousand dollars, compared to about eighty four thousand 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.760 dollars for white family living in the city. I was 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.200 reading the biography of Maynard Jackson, the first African American 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.480 mayor as you know in Atlanta. He was elected in 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:04.040 nineteen seventy three, and in his biography he talks about 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.520 the need for affordable and worked for its housing in Atlanta. 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.000 So it's been fascinating to me that this is still 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:14.720 a challenge for us. That's Atlanta's current mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.399 speaking at a Clinton Foundation event in the fall. She's 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.879 the city sixth black mayor, but she's talking about the 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:26.399 first one Maynard Jackson. He was elected in nineteen seventy 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.960 three when he was just thirty five years old. Atlanta 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.840 was a center of black political power during the Civil 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:36.680 Rights Movement. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Grew up here, 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.199 went to more House, preached from Aberneze or Baptist and 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.760 by the end of the nineteen sixties you had a 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:47.920 highly motivated, engaged black community here and they elected Jackson. 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.680 I talked to Tiffany Bussey about this. She's the director 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.399 of the Entrepreneurship Center at more House and she's been 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.520 in Atlanta for thirty years. I think we we cannot 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.520 have this conversation without really giving thanks and looking at 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.560 the work and building on the shoulders of the work 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.560 from Maynard Jackson in the first Black man of Atlanta. 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.919 He used his political power to lay the groundwork for 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:16.320 what would become generations of black wealth. And he did 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:22.560 it with this very unsexy thing government contracts. The city 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.639 was expanding its airport to become an international hub. It 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.640 was the largest construction project in the South at the time, 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:34.680 and everyone wanted a piece. Jackson decided that a full 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.640 of the contracts we're going to go to minority owned firms. 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:44.480 Prior to that, they got in just one percent. By 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.919 giving folks a chance and stating a certain percentage to 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.159 let them in, not to lord a bar, not to 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.280 change the quality of what needs to be done, but 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.320 just saying we're going to give them an opportunity to 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.880 get a piece of this pie. UM, I think really 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:05.919 really cropped the door in UM started the whole movement. 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.960 The idea of giving minority groups preferential treatment for city 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:16.359 contracts was new, controversial, and immediately effective. Within five years, 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:21.640 about city contracts went to minority on firms in other 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:26.520 cities started to implement similar programs, but the set asides 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:32.159 or affirmative action was not universally popular. In Atlanta and elsewhere. 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:36.520 They were almost immediately challenged in court, kicking off decades 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:43.880 of legal battles that slowed everything down. By the time 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.800 the airport gets done. Reagan's in the White House. The 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:51.320 culture shifts in Atlantis, growing black middle class kids are 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.040 going to college to become lawyers or doctors, or to 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.560 work in consulting or head to Wall Street. And that's great, 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.640 But what happens in Atlanta, and this is happening everywhere 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.680 else in the US is that money leaves the poor 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.680 and working class black neighborhoods and heads to the suburbs 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:14.120 or neighborhoods with bigger houses, better schools, nicer supermarkets. Latresa 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:18.520 mclaughharn Ryan is another long time Atlanta resident who's watched 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.000 some of these trends unfold. She has the Atlanta Wealth 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:26.919 Building Initiative, which raises awareness about income inequality in the city. 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:30.960 When people do have greater options, or the greater options 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.680 that began to develop as a result of the policies 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:36.920 that were put into place in the in the seventies, 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.640 um over time, they moved to where those amenities are 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.360 easier to harness. It's not just about the amenities, it's 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:48.880 also about community, who your neighbors are. Before I moved here, 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.800 I didn't realize just how clicky Atlanta could be. So 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.240 where do you go to college? Where do you go 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.120 to church? Are you in a sorority? On one hand, 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.200 those kind networks built a lot of social and political capital, 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.399 but they also leave a lot of people out. Here's 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:11.000 Professor Bussy again. I'm afraid that some of what I 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.959 see happening in Atlanta is exactly that you have the 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.800 group that is making it, and then they go off 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.719 into their own little social clubs and repeat what the 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.160 majority community has done. And we know that we did 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:27.399 not like what they did. Well, we have some of 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:30.440 that happening also, and we have to find a way 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:33.000 to break that and not repeat the same mistakes that 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.280 we saw there. There's definitely a lot working for some 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:40.159 black folks in Atlanta. For example, the median income for 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:46.320 black families in the city grew about from that was 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.879 faster than for white households, and it was a bigger 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.240 jump than for black families in New York, Los Angeles 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:57.440 and Chicago. In the last decade, the number of black 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:01.080 households in Atlanta making at least two hundred thousand dollars 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:06.240 a year is up by a hundred and that rising 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:09.359 tide hasn't lifted all boats, at least not enough to 0:23:09.400 --> 0:23:11.840 put it in in black poverty or the racial wealth 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.560 gap in Atlanta. There's a new generation of activists and 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.960 politicians who are ready to leverage the city's political power 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:23.080 to change that, and they're acknowledging that the issues we're 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:26.040 seeing today we're never fully dealt with in the past. 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:30.720 Here's Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms again. My husband is a 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:35.480 corporate corporate executive. I am the mayor of Atlanta. I 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:38.439 live in a neighborhood that has not recovered from the 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.000 two thousand and eight crisis. I still owe more on 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:45.760 my home um than its value, and my schools in 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:50.040 my neighborhood right pretty much at the bottom of all 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:53.600 of our public schools. We can't address one or the other. 0:23:53.680 --> 0:24:03.240 We have to address it comprehensively. So, Jordan, does Atlanta 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:05.520 feel like a black mecca in the same way it 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:08.800 did before you moved? I think Atlanta is definitely still 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.480 a black mecca, but I am just realizing that there's 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:16.360 a lot of forces working against it. For example, Atlanta 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:20.959 has this affordable housing crisis, there's this shrinking black middle class, 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:23.840 and it's just just taking a lot of efforts make 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:26.679 sure it lives up to its reputation of being a 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:30.280 black mecca and making sure that every black person can 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:33.679 benefit from some of, you know, the great opportunities that 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:49.919 the city affords. Atlanta story is complex and layered and 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:52.960 doesn't give us all the answers. What it does tell 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:55.199 us about the racial wealth gap in the US is 0:24:55.240 --> 0:25:00.480 that even small political decisions can have big impacts. Next 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:03.080 week on The Paycheck, we'll be going deep on just that, 0:25:03.880 --> 0:25:07.240 the political history of the racial welcap and how moments 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:10.679 both big and small, led to the inequalities we see today. 0:25:11.480 --> 0:25:15.159 You needed to break up the plantations and distribute the 0:25:15.280 --> 0:25:18.439 land for two reasons. This was the only way that 0:25:18.520 --> 0:25:23.360 African Americans would avoid being economically dependent on their former owners. 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:26.600 They wouldn't really then be free. They did not know 0:25:26.760 --> 0:25:30.879 accidentally leave out people of certain races. It did so 0:25:30.960 --> 0:25:36.800 explicitly um methodically. Where the civil rights movement didn't succeed 0:25:37.119 --> 0:25:42.040 was in any significant way addressing uh economic inequality between 0:25:42.720 --> 0:25:51.879 blacks and whites in the United States. Thanks for listening 0:25:51.880 --> 0:25:55.080 to The Paycheck. If you like the show, please rate, review, 0:25:55.240 --> 0:25:58.960 and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was 0:25:59.000 --> 0:26:03.800 hosted by Me Rebecca Greenfield and me Jackie Simmons. This 0:26:03.880 --> 0:26:07.840 episode was edited by Janet Paskin and reported with the 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:13.359 help of Jordan Holman, Brett Polly, Maria, Eloisa Capuro, and 0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:17.879 Katarina Surviva. Our producers are Lindsay Cratowell, Magnus Hendrickson, and 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:22.040 Ethan Brooks. Our original music is by Leo Sedgrin. Francesco 0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:25.400 Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. We'll see you next time.