OUR STOLEN CAPITAL LEGACY
A moral man in a land of thieves is like a lamb in a land of wolves, prey.
So were our newly freed ancestors with their Freedmen's Saving Bank.
Their thrift, extra work, and patient sacrifice had enabled them to save while enslaved. These virtues were recognized by Congress when it incorporated the "Freedmen's Savings Bank," across from the White House, later expanded to 37 cities in at least 11 states in 1865, the very year their "Freedom War" ended at Appomattox, Virginia.
Millions of their hard-earned, long-preserved dollars (many billions by today's standards ) were poured into these banks by our ebullient people, as they watched with pride other colored people working as clerks, tellers, bank officials, even a few as trustees, which was all but unimaginable a few years earlier!
Capital investment of its funds by this new bank was restricted by law, at first, to government bonds and treasury notes. This was done to assure its integrity and allay spurious speculations with their capital. As additional protection, no loans could be made, locally, but were restricted to Washington, D.C.
This large pool of money sitting in Reconstruction-era Washington DC soon was sniffed out by corporate raiders and financial "sharpies" as potential prey to be stolen away.
So, having attracted the interest of "Wall Street," getting that bank's capital use restrictions removed to allow speculative investments, well outside of government securities, and outside of Washington, D.C., was just a simple matter of paying off a few politicians, Republican and Demoxrat. Once this was done, the depredations began in earnest.
From funding flimsy real estate deals, shaky stock transactions; any scheme that could fly, a few feet, these viruses ate away! These acts were committed by the so-called "friends of the Negro" till their money was nearly all gone!
When the alarm was sounded in the late waning months, after the damage was done, the public relations experts were rushed in.
Frederick Douglass was appointed a trustee. He had invested $10,000 of his own money in the bank, and was appointed its President to restore investor confidence. Also appointed as a trustee in these last days was John Mercer Langston, Esq., who had founded the Howard U. Law School in 1869, much for the same reasons as Douglass'.
As deposits were not guaranteed by the government, at that time, when the bank failed in 1872, a mere seven years after its singular founding, its many tens of thousands of depositors were only able to recover a fraction of their money. Nor did Congress ever "bail out" this bank, nor refund any lost money to the duped black savers!
On January 7, 2016, 150 years later, the "Freedmen's Savings Bank" will be rededicated at its original site, where the "U.S. Treasury Annex" now stands in Washington, D.C. , across from the White House; and will be renamed, officially. That ceremony and this history should give added impetus to the push for reparations of our "stolen capital legacy," also delayed 150 years!
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/freedmen-s-savings-and-trust-company-1865-1874
Friday, December 11, 2015
OUR STOLEN CAPITAL LEGACY
OUR STOLEN CAPITAL LEGACY
A moral man in a land of thieves is like a lamb in a land of wolves, prey.
So were our newly freed ancestors with their Freedmen's Saving Bank.
Their thrift, extra work, and patient sacrifice had enabled them to save while enslaved. These virtues were recognized by Congress when it incorporated the "Freedmen's Savings Bank," across from the White House, later expanded to 37 cities in at least 11 states in 1865, the very year their "Freedom War" ended at Appomattox, Virginia.
Millions of their hard-earned, long-preserved dollars (many billions by today's standards ) were poured into these banks by our ebullient people, as they watched with pride other colored people working as clerks, tellers, bank officials, even a few as trustees, which was all but unimaginable a few years earlier!
Capital investment of its funds by this new bank was restricted by law, at first, to government bonds and treasury notes. This was done to assure its integrity and allay spurious speculations with their capital. As additional protection, no loans could be made, locally, but were restricted to Washington, D.C.
This large pool of money sitting in Reconstruction-era Washington DC soon was sniffed out by corporate raiders and financial "sharpies" as potential prey to be stolen away.
So, having attracted the interest of "Wall Street," getting that bank's capital use restrictions removed to allow speculative investments, well outside of government securities, and outside of Washington, D.C., was just a simple matter of paying off a few politicians, Republican and Demoxrat. Once this was done, the depredations began in earnest.
From funding flimsy real estate deals, shaky stock transactions; any scheme that could fly, a few feet, these viruses ate away! These acts were committed by the so-called "friends of the Negro" till their money was nearly all gone!
When the alarm was sounded in the late waning months, after the damage was done, the public relations experts were rushed in.
Frederick Douglass was appointed a trustee. He had invested $10,000 of his own money in the bank, and was appointed its President to restore investor confidence. Also appointed as a trustee in these last days was John Mercer Langston, Esq., who had founded the Howard U. Law School in 1869, much for the same reasons as Douglass'.
As deposits were not guaranteed by the government, at that time, when the bank failed in 1872, a mere seven years after its singular founding, its many tens of thousands of depositors were only able to recover a fraction of their money. Nor did Congress ever "bail out" this bank, nor refund any lost money to the duped black savers!
On January 7, 2016, 150 years later, the "Freedmen's Savings Bank" will be rededicated at its original site, where the "U.S. Treasury Annex" now stands in Washington, D.C. , across from the White House; and will be renamed, officially. That ceremony and this history should give added impetus to the push for reparations of our "stolen capital legacy," also delayed 150 years!
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/freedmen-s-savings-and-trust-company-1865-1874
