How Whites Locked Blacks Out of America's Wealth

Why does the Black-White wealth gap remain so large after generations of hard work, military service, entrepreneurship, and educational achievement? This livestream examines a question rarely explored in depth: How did government policies, private institutions, and legal systems prevent many Black Americans from building and passing down wealth? As an attorney, I will examine the laws, court decisions, and public policies that shaped wealth in America. We'll discuss slavery, Black Codes, the destruction of prosperous Black communities, housing discrimination, redlining, exclusion from many federal programs, unequal access to credit, employment discrimination, and mass incarceration. These were not isolated events. Together, they created barriers to wealth accumulation that affected multiple generations. This discussion is based on historical records, legal analysis, government data, and economic research. The goal is not to assign personal blame to individuals living today, but to understand how institutions and policies influenced who built wealth and who was excluded from it. Topics include: • How slavery created wealth for some while denying wealth to others • The legal barriers that followed emancipation • How housing policy became one of the largest drivers of the racial wealth gap • The impact of segregation, redlining, and discriminatory lending • How education, business ownership, and inheritance shape generational wealth • What the evidence says about the Black wealth gap today • Lessons for building wealth in the future Bring your questions and join the discussion as we separate historical fact from myth and examine one of the most consequential economic issues in American history. Subscribe to the Defiant Lawyers Network for legal analysis, civil rights, public policy, and history grounded in evidence.