0:02

When I was growing up, East Texas might

0:04

as well have been another planet. I

0:07

grew up in Phoenix. There was me, my

0:10

dad, my brother Dan, and

0:12

the Catholic schools where we were often the

0:14

only black kids. In my mind,

0:16

Texas was big hats rodeos

0:19

that showed Dallas, and the

0:21

only thing that connected me to the state was

0:24

a chunk of land my family owned there.

0:27

My dad's land was in a tiny town called

0:29

Gilmour, near Mount Pleasant, where we

0:31

have a lot of distant relatives. We drove

0:33

through there once, but I don't remember meeting

0:36

any relatives. I do recall sleeping

0:38

in the car and arguing with my brother.

0:41

After Arizona, I moved to California

0:44

and then France, about as far

0:46

as you get from Phoenix. Sometimes

0:48

my dad would call me and talk about the Texas

0:50

property. How would buy a better

0:52

life for him and my brother, who has a disability,

0:56

How there might be oil on the land or some

0:58

kind of rare timber. I

1:00

was never sure how seriously I should take him,

1:03

but sometimes I'd like to fantasize that this could

1:05

be my retirement. I also like

1:07

to brag to my French friends about being a Texan

1:10

landowner. It sounded kind of cool.

1:13

Years went by. My dad talked

1:15

less and less about the land, but he

1:17

never gave up on it, and one email

1:19

I got from him, he says, I'm

1:22

certain of one thing. If that property

1:24

ever pays off in Texas, we are out

1:26

of here to someplace other

1:28

than Mexico. I have

1:30

no idea what he meant by Mexico, and

1:33

I never got a chance to ask. He

1:35

got cancer, and while sick, a

1:38

cousin reached out to see whether I could get him to

1:40

sell some of the land. I

1:42

tell the cousin how busy I was with kids

1:45

and work and living abroad, sort

1:48

of code for I really can't

1:50

be bothered with this right now. Dad

1:53

died in early twenty six and

1:55

for the next four years I completely

1:57

forgot about Texas.

2:00

But during the pandemic and after

2:03

George Floyd was killed, I

2:05

got to thinking about family. While

2:08

digging around my closet, I came

2:10

across a bright red folder called

2:13

Dad's Stuff. I

2:15

opened it and I was floored

2:18

by what I saw. The

2:26

data shows that the median white

2:28

family has ten times more wealth

2:31

than the average black family. One

2:33

of the drivers of that wealth gap is redlining.

2:36

When it comes to understanding financial

2:38

inequality in this country, Economists

2:40

often point to the absence of African American

2:43

generational wealth see the black

2:45

Page.

2:50

It's a trend propelled not just by economic

2:52

forces, but by white racism in

2:54

local white political and economic

2:57

power. It's much easier

2:59

to enter rate a lunch comment than it

3:01

is to guarantee an annual income, for

3:03

instance, to get rid of positive Welcome

3:09

back to the paycheck. I'm Rebecca Greenfield

3:12

and I'm Jackie Simmons. In

3:14

our last two seasons, we looked at all

3:16

the reasons for and efforts to fix

3:18

the gender pay gap. This time

3:20

we're switching gears. We were

3:22

starting to think about our third season when the

3:25

pandemic hit. It quickly became

3:27

clear there was another economic inequality

3:29

demanding our attention, the racial

3:32

wealth gap. I got to talking

3:34

about it with my colleague Jackie. I'd

3:36

recently moved back to the States after two

3:38

decades overseas. I

3:40

came back to a country dealing with its racist

3:43

past in a way it never had Black

3:46

Lives Matter protest politics.

3:49

All this on top of a pandemic that

3:53

got me thinking about how my own experience

3:55

with race was shaped by my family's

3:57

past, and it took me

3:59

back to Texas in the land.

4:02

I started asking questions, which led

4:04

to more questions, and as

4:06

I went deeper, I wondered how

4:09

unique our story was. How

4:11

did black people build wealth in America? How

4:14

did they keep or fail to keep

4:16

it? That's what Jackie

4:18

and I will be exploring for the next eight weeks.

4:26

The US is the richest nation in the world and

4:28

has been for a long time. All

4:31

told, American households have

4:33

about one sixteen trillion

4:36

dollars in wealth, most of

4:38

that owned by white people. Black

4:40

people make up around the

4:42

population, but have just three

4:44

point eight percent of the wealth. The

4:47

US passed civil rights laws meant

4:49

to remove barriers for black Americans

4:52

nearly sixty years ago. Some

4:55

things have changed a lot, but

4:58

not the wealth gap and real

5:00

terms. Here's what that means. When

5:02

you count up how much the average American

5:04

household is worth, including stuff like property,

5:07

investments, savings, and anything

5:09

else worth a dime minus any

5:11

liability is like student debt or mortgage.

5:14

White households have almost seven times

5:16

more than Black households. There

5:19

are a lot of reasons for that, mostly

5:22

America's legacy of slavery and racism,

5:25

and that shows up

5:27

in all kinds of ways that contribute to

5:29

economic inequality. Black

5:31

people are in less pay higher taxes,

5:33

have more student debt than white people, and

5:36

so on. Over time,

5:38

this has made it harder for black people to accumulate

5:40

wealth and pass it on to their children.

5:43

As much as Americans love the Racks to Richest

5:46

story, the reality is most

5:48

people acquire wealth from their parents

5:50

or their parents parents. By

5:53

one measure, Americans

5:55

wealth came from inheritance. It's

5:58

hard to overstate how important that is.

6:01

William Daretty, who also goes

6:03

by Sandy, is a professor

6:05

at Duke University, and it's one of the nation's

6:07

leading scholars on race and economics.

6:10

If there are certain families that have a

6:12

greater capacity to provide gifts

6:14

to the next generation than

6:17

others, they're also providing

6:19

that next generation with a greater range

6:21

of opportunity and a greater likelihood

6:25

of having a more economically secure

6:28

future. For all the reasons we'll talk

6:30

about this season, white people

6:32

have had and continue to have huge

6:35

advantages when it comes to building wealth. Among

6:38

the five hundred richest people in the world

6:40

that Bloomberg tracks, there are

6:42

one hundred fifty five American billionaires,

6:45

and just one of them, Robert Smith,

6:48

is black. Yes, having

6:50

money means you can buy bigger houses and

6:52

nicer cars, but it's much

6:54

more than that. Here's Sandy

6:57

Daretty again. Wealth can protect

6:59

you from income losses in

7:01

emergencies where you might lose a

7:03

job, where you might be confronted with catastrophic

7:06

illness. Wealth provides you with a

7:08

certain kind of personal insurance,

7:11

and having that safety net it creates

7:13

different kinds of opportunities and

7:16

power. The possibility of moving

7:18

your family into a high amenity

7:20

neighborhood, the opportunity

7:22

of trying to ensure that your children

7:24

receive a high quality education. It

7:27

gives you access to the political process.

7:30

It allows you to leave resources

7:33

for subsequent generations. The racial

7:35

wealth gap tells us a lot about the economy

7:37

as a whole. Who has security and

7:40

economic mobility, and this

7:42

is really important. Whose children

7:44

gets set up for success later on. So

7:48

that land my family owned in Texas, my

7:50

dad hoped it would set us up for success or

7:53

at least provides some financial security.

7:56

And when he inherit the lend from his mother,

7:59

she wanted this aimed for him and her

8:01

other children it

8:04

didn't quite work out that way.

8:14

Anyone dealing with passing down land knows

8:16

how expensive and messy that process can

8:18

be and always has been. But

8:21

historically, white families and black

8:23

families have faced different challenges. In

8:26

My family's story typifies

8:28

some of them. The story

8:30

begins with Will and Barbara Brotus. Barbara

8:33

was born in eighteen seventy six.

8:36

She's my great great aunt

8:39

and was married to Will. They were

8:41

farmers and had nearly eighty acres

8:43

in Gilmer, Texas, about two

8:45

hours east of Dallas. The

8:48

thumb was between the

8:51

school in their home. That's

8:54

sunny and like me, she

8:57

has relatives who were raised by

8:59

the Brotus and they raised peace

9:02

cord beings okrah

9:05

Amish, peace onion, wallomelon

9:08

camel, of theories, everything they could.

9:11

People thought of the protest as strict, god

9:13

fearing people, but they were also

9:15

kind. They took an abandoned or

9:18

orphaned children, including my grandmother

9:20

Jewel. They cared for at

9:22

least half a dozen kids over the years. For

9:25

a time they lived off the crops they

9:27

raised on those seventy seven acres. Then

9:30

Will died and Barbara divided

9:32

the land between children and family friends.

9:35

She died in nineteen sixty four. I

9:38

searched high and low trying to uncover exactly

9:41

how Will and Barbara originally came into

9:43

the land. I went through public records,

9:46

I made phone calls to family members across

9:48

multiple states. I called

9:50

county officials. What

9:53

experts and historians do know is

9:55

that black farmers were often gifted

9:57

land from a white landowner or

10:00

possibly even a former slave

10:02

master. My family records

10:05

only date to the time when the Brotess

10:07

split up their land. Let

10:11

me let me check. Let me check one

10:13

of my documents here. Okay, that's my

10:15

cousin Ples. He has

10:18

all of the records. Uh.

10:20

Jules Simmons two point five

10:23

two acres, Mildred's Shop

10:25

three point five acres, Florida,

10:27

May Phillips two point five

10:29

acres, Katherine Young

10:32

two five acres. By the time

10:34

the Brotus died, the children they raised

10:37

had moved on and out of Gilmour. They

10:39

wanted their children to go to college and were professional

10:42

jobs, which usually took them to bigger cities.

10:44

And that's exactly what happened. But

10:47

while our families commitment to the land declined,

10:50

one thing did not property taxes.

10:53

They went up and up, and

10:55

the land that should have been an asset became

10:57

a liability. I looked at

10:59

it. It seemed like a headache. My cousin Noel,

11:02

who lives in Atlanta, sold the last

11:04

of his family's personal in two

11:06

thousand nine. All I heard about the

11:08

land was distress. My mother

11:11

didn't concern herself with it for the most part.

11:14

Other than giving money to help pay all property

11:16

taxes. There are other reasons not

11:18

to hold onto the land. LANDA

11:21

Davis is another cousin and lives

11:23

in Dallas. At one point, she considered

11:25

using the Gilmer Land as a retreat

11:28

center for her youth mentoring group, so

11:30

she went to Upshurre County to deal with taxes.

11:33

But when she got there, she says, a white

11:35

man overheard her talking about her plans,

11:38

and he said, I don't want to

11:40

deter you or any of that, but I

11:43

don't think you, being black, this will

11:46

be a good place for you all.

11:49

And we're like, okay, he said, I have

11:51

some good black friends, but there's

11:54

a lot of white people out around

11:56

here. This not really wanting

12:00

X to be in this area.

12:03

Llana sold most of her parcel in we

12:06

would never live in Gilmer, or

12:08

even developed that land in Gilmer. We

12:11

need to let that go back

12:13

to my dad's land. Remember

12:15

when I was digging around my closet over a weekend

12:17

during lockdown, Well, I

12:20

had to catch my breath when I found an offer

12:22

letter from my dad's land from a man I'd

12:24

never heard of. Turns

12:26

out Dad agreed to sell

12:28

his piece of land a long time ago.

12:31

I had no idea he sold it or

12:33

why. The man who bought

12:36

the land was named Shane

12:38

Mayn, so I called

12:40

him up to find out more. Okay,

12:43

so are you are you from like that vicinity or are you

12:45

from a different part of Texas. I'm

12:47

actually from gilmur originally. Shane's

12:51

white and has spent his entire life

12:53

in Gilmour. He works as a home inspector,

12:56

he's a deacon in a church, and he's

12:58

been buying land in the area since he was seventeen.

13:01

He eske to meate he's got around sixty

13:04

or seventy acres now, including my

13:06

dad's two point five. Yeah,

13:08

I remember when we bought that property.

13:11

We've been kind of like buying pete piece

13:13

and here and there we were going we

13:15

were actually gonna be aild a house on it, if

13:18

we got enough accumulated

13:20

in there. Uh, but

13:23

we never have. We've just got trees

13:25

up there. At the moment. In the files

13:27

I was searching through, I saw Shane

13:29

offered my dad about six thousand

13:31

dollars for the property. That figure

13:34

felt really low to me. And then

13:36

I saw paperwork in that same file cabinet

13:38

showing the county had to praise the land at

13:41

almost six times that amount. I

13:43

asked Shane about that. He didn't

13:46

agree the land is worth that much. I

13:48

was told that every acre in ups

13:50

Your county is valued at twelve

13:52

thousand, five hundred dollars and no

13:54

matter what it is, and

13:57

that's the base pride. It can

13:59

go up, but it won't go below twelve thousand

14:02

five night and

14:04

every piece of land on that no matter why. Really,

14:10

I couldn't disagree more because

14:14

like Yolanda's half an acre, I'd

14:17

be glad to send you a picture of it. It is a

14:19

swamp. I mean a

14:21

swamp. I

14:24

reached out to the up Sture Appraisal Office

14:27

for the record an official.

14:29

They're said, valuations vary

14:32

and not every property starts

14:34

at twelve thousand five an

14:37

acre. I've never been to Gomer,

14:40

I've never seen the land. The

14:42

county said it was valued at more than thirty thousand

14:44

dollars, which would help explain

14:47

why the taxes were so high. But

14:49

when it came time to sell, it

14:51

was only worth six thousand dollars.

14:55

That still didn't make sense to me. But

14:57

when you start to add up the history of

14:59

how we got the land, the multiple

15:02

slivers that were parceled out to family

15:04

owners who were impossible to track down,

15:07

the inadequate record keeping, the nature

15:09

of the land itself, and high

15:12

taxes, you start to get a sense

15:14

of how black families in the US have a

15:16

hard time passing on wealth. Before

15:20

I hung up, I asked Shane what

15:22

he planned to do with the land. Everything

15:26

my son to give them something

15:28

another flip. And when I get

15:31

older, Black

15:40

Americans have been trying to shore up their economic

15:43

futures for over a hundred fifty years,

15:45

We're going to spend a lot of time looking at how those

15:47

efforts have been boarded time and time again.

15:50

But there are also places in the US that are seen

15:52

as havens for black people, places

15:54

where ambitious young professionals are finding

15:56

community and upward mobility, and

15:59

there's one in city that tops that list,

16:02

Atlanta.

16:14

I've been a journalist at Bloomberg for twenty

16:16

four years. I started in

16:18

Paris as a retail reporter. These

16:21

days, I manage our bureaus across

16:23

the America's, among other things.

16:26

And just over a year ago, one of our

16:28

reporters, Jordan Holman, told

16:30

me she wanted to leave New York City. I

16:33

pitched to you that I should be going to Atlanta,

16:35

um, which I remember you were surprised about

16:38

and said you did not expect that from me. Oh did

16:40

I say that? Because

16:42

you figured that I would want to stay in New York

16:44

and that I was super happy there, So

16:47

why did you want to go to Atlanta? I

16:49

was imagining Atlanta just being super

16:52

fun, you know. When I would bounce the idea off

16:54

my friends, like what if I moved to Atlanta? They were like, if

16:57

I would move to any other city, it would be Atlanta

16:59

because there's so much entertainment and

17:01

culture here, lots of good food,

17:04

and then the element that there's so many

17:06

black people there who are thriving.

17:08

I was like, Okay, I can make that work too,

17:10

I can be part of that. So moved

17:13

and now you're in Atlanta, I am,

17:16

and it's been really eye opening. I

17:18

think the idea of Atlanta as this black

17:20

mecca have been so deeply ingrained

17:22

in me growing up. I had cousins

17:24

who graduated from more House and Spellman,

17:27

and when we visit it, we went to the King Center

17:29

and all of that. So I

17:31

was really surprised when I read the stats. There

17:34

are a lot of successful black people in Atlanta,

17:37

but the income inequality is also

17:40

off the charts. The median

17:42

household income for a black family in Atlanta

17:45

is about twenty eight thousand dollars, compared

17:47

to about eighty four thousand dollars

17:50

for white family living in the city. I

17:52

was reading the biography of Maynard Jackson,

17:54

the first African American mayor as

17:57

you know in Atlanta. He was elected

17:59

in nineteen seventy three, and in

18:01

his biography he talks about

18:04

the need for affordable and worked for its

18:06

housing in Atlanta. So it's been

18:08

fascinating to me that this is still a challenge

18:10

for us. That's Atlanta's current

18:12

mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, speaking

18:15

at a Clinton Foundation event in the fall.

18:18

She's the city sixth black mayor, but

18:21

she's talking about the first one Maynard

18:23

Jackson. He was elected

18:25

in nineteen seventy three when he was just

18:27

thirty five years old. Atlanta

18:30

was a center of black political power

18:32

during the Civil Rights Movement. Dr

18:34

Martin Luther King Jr. Grew up here,

18:36

went to more House, preached from Aberneze

18:38

or Baptist and by the end of the

18:41

nineteen sixties you had a highly

18:43

motivated, engaged black community

18:45

here and they elected Jackson.

18:49

I talked to Tiffany Bussey about this. She's

18:52

the director of the Entrepreneurship Center

18:54

at more House and she's been in

18:56

Atlanta for thirty years. I think

18:58

we we cannot have this conversation

19:00

without really giving thanks

19:02

and looking at the work and building on the shoulders

19:05

of the work from Maynard Jackson in the first

19:07

Black man of Atlanta. He used his political

19:10

power to lay the groundwork for what

19:12

would become generations of black

19:14

wealth. And he did it

19:16

with this very unsexy thing government

19:20

contracts. The city

19:22

was expanding its airport to become an

19:24

international hub. It was

19:26

the largest construction project in the South

19:29

at the time, and everyone

19:31

wanted a piece. Jackson

19:33

decided that a full of

19:36

the contracts we're going to go to

19:38

minority owned firms. Prior

19:40

to that, they got in just one

19:43

percent. By giving folks

19:45

a chance and stating a

19:47

certain percentage to let them in, not

19:50

to lord a bar, not to change

19:53

the quality of what needs to be done, but

19:55

just saying we're going to give them an opportunity

19:58

to get a piece of this pie. UM,

20:00

I think really really cropped the door

20:03

in UM started the whole movement.

20:06

The idea of giving minority groups

20:08

preferential treatment for city contracts

20:10

was new, controversial, and

20:13

immediately effective. Within

20:15

five years, about city

20:18

contracts went to minority on firms

20:21

in other cities started to implement similar

20:23

programs, but the

20:25

set asides or affirmative action

20:28

was not universally popular. In

20:30

Atlanta and elsewhere. They were almost

20:33

immediately challenged in court, kicking

20:35

off decades of legal battles

20:37

that slowed everything down. By

20:43

the time the airport gets done. Reagan's

20:45

in the White House. The culture shifts in

20:48

Atlantis, growing black middle class kids

20:51

are going to college to become lawyers or doctors,

20:53

or to work in consulting or head to Wall

20:55

Street. And that's great, But

20:58

what happens in Atlanta, and this is happening

21:01

everywhere else in the US is

21:03

that money leaves the poor and working

21:05

class black neighborhoods and heads

21:07

to the suburbs or neighborhoods with

21:09

bigger houses, better schools, nicer

21:11

supermarkets. Latresa

21:14

mclaughharn Ryan is another long time

21:16

Atlanta resident who's watched

21:18

some of these trends unfold. She

21:20

has the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative,

21:23

which raises awareness about income

21:25

inequality in the city. When

21:27

people do have greater options, or

21:30

the greater options that began to develop

21:33

as a result of the policies that were put into

21:35

place in the in the seventies, um

21:37

over time, they moved to where those amenities

21:40

are easier to harness. It's not

21:42

just about the amenities, it's also about

21:44

community, who your neighbors are.

21:47

Before I moved here, I didn't realize

21:50

just how clicky Atlanta could be. So

21:52

where do you go to college? Where do

21:55

you go to church? Are you in

21:57

a sorority? On one hand,

21:59

those kind networks built a lot of

22:01

social and political capital, but

22:04

they also leave a lot of people out. Here's

22:07

Professor Bussy again. I'm afraid

22:09

that some of what I see happening in

22:11

Atlanta is exactly that

22:14

you have the group that is making it,

22:16

and then they go off into their

22:18

own little social clubs and repeat

22:20

what the majority community

22:23

has done. And we know that we did

22:25

not like what they did. Well, we have some

22:27

of that happening also, and we

22:29

have to find a way to break that and not

22:31

repeat the same mistakes that we saw there.

22:34

There's definitely a lot working for some black

22:36

folks in Atlanta. For example, the

22:39

median income for black families in the city

22:41

grew about from

22:46

that was faster than for white households, and

22:49

it was a bigger jump than for black families

22:51

in New York, Los Angeles and

22:53

Chicago. In the last

22:55

decade, the number of black households

22:58

in Atlanta making at least two hundred

23:00

thousand dollars a year is up by

23:02

a hundred and that

23:06

rising tide hasn't lifted all boats, at

23:08

least not enough to put it in in black poverty

23:11

or the racial wealth gap in Atlanta. There's

23:13

a new generation of activists and politicians

23:16

who are ready to leverage the city's political

23:18

power to change that, and

23:21

they're acknowledging that the issues we're seeing

23:23

today we're never fully dealt with in

23:25

the past. Here's Mayor Keisha

23:28

Lance Bottoms again. My husband

23:30

is a corporate corporate executive.

23:32

I am the mayor of Atlanta.

23:35

I live in a neighborhood that has not

23:37

recovered from the two thousand and eight crisis.

23:39

I still owe more on my home um

23:42

than its value, and my

23:44

schools in my neighborhood right

23:47

pretty much at the bottom of all

23:50

of our public schools. We can't

23:52

address one or the other. We have to address

23:54

it comprehensively. So,

24:01

Jordan, does Atlanta feel

24:03

like a black mecca in the same way it did

24:06

before you moved? I think Atlanta

24:08

is definitely still a black mecca, but

24:10

I am just realizing that there's a lot

24:12

of forces working against

24:14

it. For example, Atlanta has

24:16

this affordable housing crisis, there's

24:19

this shrinking black middle class, and

24:21

it's just just taking a lot of efforts

24:23

make sure it lives up to its reputation

24:26

of being a black mecca and making sure that

24:29

every black person can benefit from

24:31

some of, you know, the great opportunities that

24:33

the city affords. Atlanta

24:47

story is complex and layered

24:49

and doesn't give us all the answers. What

24:52

it does tell us about the racial wealth gap in

24:54

the US is that even small political

24:56

decisions can have big impacts. Next

25:00

week on The Paycheck, we'll be going deep on

25:02

just that, the political history

25:04

of the racial welcap and how moments

25:07

both big and small, led to the inequalities

25:09

we see today. You needed

25:12

to break up the plantations

25:14

and distribute the land for two reasons.

25:17

This was the only way that African Americans

25:19

would avoid being economically dependent

25:22

on their former owners. They wouldn't really

25:24

then be free. They did not know

25:26

accidentally leave out

25:29

people of certain races. It did so explicitly

25:32

um methodically. Where

25:34

the civil rights movement didn't succeed

25:37

was in any significant way addressing

25:40

uh economic inequality between

25:42

blacks and whites in the United States. Thanks

25:51

for listening to The Paycheck. If you like the

25:53

show, please rate, review, and subscribe

25:56

wherever you get your podcasts. This

25:58

episode was hosted by Me Rebecca

26:00

Greenfield and me Jackie Simmons.

26:03

This episode was edited by Janet

26:05

Paskin and reported with the

26:07

help of Jordan Holman, Brett

26:10

Polly, Maria, Eloisa

26:12

Capuro, and Katarina Surviva.

26:14

Our producers are Lindsay Cratowell, Magnus

26:17

Hendrickson, and Ethan Brooks. Our

26:19

original music is by Leo Sedgrin.

26:21

Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.

26:24

We'll see you next time.